Jessica Simpson hasn't had it easy in showbusiness, and the things she got honest about in recent years only go to show how much she had to work to shed the image others had built for her.
The singer and businesswoman has been romantically linked to several men, struggling to be taken seriously personally and professionally.
Jessica Simpson Blames Her Public Image For Her Failed Relationships
In a chat with Drew Barrymore, the I Wanna Love You Forever singer admitted that her reputation as the silly, ditzy blonde pop star cut short many a romance.
"Well, I have dated a couple of musicians. Some under the radar that people don't know about," Simpson said on The Drew Barrymore Show in 2021.
She didn't divulge who these musicians may be, nor did she have to. Her most talked-about affair with one of said artists, John Mayer, is public knowledge, though it started in secret not long after her split from her first husband, singer and presenter Nick Lachey.
"I felt like any time it started to get a little bit serious, I was the person to run from because every guy would be listening to their publicist," Simpson explained.
"It would be like 'Stay away. Stay away. You'll never be a respected actor; you'll never be a respected musician if you're dating her,'" she continued.
"But that was back then, so at least that was the excuses I heard."
Jessica Simpson On John Mayer's Crass Comments About Their Intimate Life
Mayer, however, was quick to use Simpson's perceived image as a blonde bombshell in his infamous 2010 Playboy interview, where he detailed their intimate life, calling her "s*xual napalm".
"He thought that was what I wanted to be called," she wrote in her memoir Open Book, adding: "I was floored and embarrassed that my grandmother was actually gonna read that."
"A woman and how they are in bed is not something that is ever talked about. It was shocking."
Those comments apparently prompted Simpson to "erase [Mayer's] number," and the two lost touch. Though Mayer did apologize while on stage shortly afterward, Simpson said she didn't think she was owed a public apology.
"I definitely don't feel that I am owed a public apology," she said on the Tamron Hall Show last year.
"Now that I have the love of Eric [Johnson, her husband], it's just such a different thing. I wouldn't expect an apology. I don't think there's a need for an apology. I feel like people end up finding their way to let you know they're sorry. And [Mayer] might not be sorry, and that's okay. We were kind of, like, on-off, on-off at that time. But to talk about anybody sexually was kind of disrespectful, but that's on him."
Jessica Simpson On Her Relationship With Mayer
In her memoir, Simpson described her on-off relationship with Mayer and how it felt "emotionally manipulative".
"He loved me in the way that he could and I loved that love for a very long time. Too long. And I went back and forth with it for a long time. But it did control me," she wrote, adding: "Again and again, he told me he was obsessed with me, sexually and emotionally."
"I constantly worried that I wasn't smart enough for him. He was so clever and treated conversation like a friendly competition that he had to win. My anxiety would spike and I would pour another drink. It was the start of me relying on alcohol to mask my nerves."
"I was killing myself with all the drinking and pills. I was mad at that bottle. At how it allowed me to stay complacent and numb."
The singer and entrepreneur has been sober since 2017, calling sobriety "a continual gift".
"When I finally said I needed help, it was like I was that little girl that found her calling again in life. I found direction and that was to walk straight ahead with no fear."
Jessica Simpson Has Been Body-Shamed Her Entire Life
Her relationships aren't the only thing Simpson has come to be frank about. In her chat with Barrymore, the singer has opened up on being sexualized whilst performing in church choirs as a teenager, where she was told to "cover it all up" or people would "lust".
Later on, she received the same treatment in the music industry, as did some of her fellow pop stars, from Britney Spears to Christina Aguilera and many, many others.
"So I have literally been judged for my body like, since I was a kid," Simpson said.
"Judged in the church, and then after the church it was like, 'No, be sexier, but then you always have to look that way if you do it once. You have to remain that body forever," she said, possibly hinting at a phase of vile fat-shaming she endured in the late 2010s.
But that kind of casual body-shaming never seems to stop. Last year, the singer hit back at former Vogue editor Sally Singer who made comments about her breasts in an oral history of the Met Gala.
"I have persevered through shaming my own body and internalizing the world's opinions about it for my entire adult life," Simpson wrote in response on her Instagram. "To read this much-anticipated article about the classiest fashion event there is and have to be shamed by another woman for having boobs in 2020 is nauseating."