Judith Regan Refines Her Art

CHINESE CONNECTION Regan

Is Judith Regan, the deposed queen of trash culture, refining her tastes?

Regan, who showed an unparalleled genius for publishing books with enormous commercial appeal and zero literary merit before her career at HarperCollins ended abruptly last December, has been telling friends she is going into the art business, according to a source. Her recent three-week trip to China appears to have been part of a plan to set herself up as an importer of fine art works.

Meanwhile, a threatened lawsuit against her old employer still seems primed to go ahead after almost producing a settlement earlier this year. Regan contends she was wrongfully made the fall guy for the decision to publish O.J. Simpson's If I Did It, a decision that, she claims, had the support of her corporate bosses, including News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch.

Regan's public profile has been diminishing of late. Sirius Satellite Radio, which broadcasts her weekly two-hour chat show, recently changed around the program's time slots. It now airs twice between midnight and 4 a.m., and not at all during the day. A Sirius spokeswoman did not immediately answer a request for comment on the change.

UPDATE: Turns out Regan's time slot hasn't changed; a Sirius spokeswoman says the schedule posted on the company's website was just wrong "and in fact we have recently added more replays."

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