Jessica Simpson opens up in her new book
February 11, 2020
The 39-year-old star Jessica Simpson is looking back, opening up and reflecting on some of her most painful memories and intimate struggles in her new memoir titled “Open Book.”
Over the last few years, she has only been in the news for her pregnancies, an extremely successful ($1 billion) collection of clothing, a shoe and home goods brand and a drunk interview with Ellen DeGeneres back in 2017.
However, now she is back in the spotlight, but for her newly published book titled “Open Book.” She announced it back in the summer of last year and the cover and name in the winter.
Her book did not get much publicity until she did an exclusive interview with People magazine last month where she revealed that she went through pretty traumatic experiences such as alcoholism, pill addiction and sexual abuse.
“I was killing myself with all the drinking and pills,” Simpson said.
The beginning of her struggles started with the sexual abuse from when she was six-years-old and shared a bed with the daughter of a family friend.
“It would start with tickling my back and then go into things that were extremely uncomfortable,” she writes.
When she was 12-years-old, she told her parents, Tina and Joe Simpson, while they were on a road trip. It resulted in her mother taking her frustration out on her father and yelled at him saying, “I told you something was happening.”
“Dad kept his eye on the road and said nothing,” Simpson writes. “We never stayed at my parents’ friend’s house again but we also didn’t talk about what I had said.”
“I wanted to tell my parents,” she writes. “I was the victim but somehow I felt in the wrong.”
Her pill addiction dates back to when she was first signed to record label Columbia Records and had to lose weight.
“I had to go on a crash diet, quickly,” said Simpson in an interview with the Today Show. “I took diet pills. I didn’t know what I was doing, I didn’t know how much I was taking and it ended up being something I did for 20 years.”
Simpson married former NFL player Eric Johnson in 2014 and now has three kids, daughter Maxwell, 7, son Ace, 6, and baby girl Birdie, 10 months.
At one point in the book, she writes about hitting rock bottom after a Halloween party at their home in late 2017. That’s when she told her closest friends: “I need to stop. Something’s got to stop. And if it’s the alcohol that’s doing this, and making things worse, then I quit.”
Simpson also talks about her romantic relationships with Nick Lachey, John Mayer and an “emotional affair” with actor Johnny Knoxville. Along with “Open Book” Simpson returns to the avenue that made her a star, music.
Exclusively with the audio version of the book, listeners will get six brand new songs. Including one titled “Your Fool” featuring the legendary Willie Nelson. This will be her first music release since her 2010 Christmas album, “Happy Christmas.”