Jessica Simpson on Drinking, ‘Newlyweds,’ Banning Exes, Marriage and More

I'm so happy to bring Jessica Simpson back to the studio Oh my gosh, good morning Jess, oh good morning, I'm so happy to talk to you. Well, this has been good. I just said that when she got here this morning she said, "Wow, you've been." keeping some secrets that I have, but I'm not a secret any

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, you know, I'm an open book, it's funny, we're here, we started doing this on this show, but I don't know if it's really going to happen or not because I don't have that many entries, but everyone We realized that some of us, sitting like Patty, had Diaries and I had a yearbook and Tanya has a workbook she just wrote about her romances anyway, so we started doing these readings called dear diary on Wednesdays , okay and then of course I saw your book and it was like "Dear life diary, Dear life diary, it's pretty much a life's work and you wrote these things, how much did you really write in your own diary that a hundred Well, once?" When I got sober in 2017, well, I started going through my mm-hmm journals to write new music for release and I wanted to go back through experiences and stuff, and when I was with all these writers at a writing session at my house.

I was opening journals and I liked turning from page to page and I liked realizing how many things I hadn't really addressed, but I was also looking at the girl that I was and the perspective that I had and I really missed that person and that's when I started to drink and try to like insensitive things and then I realized that they were things that I really needed to talk about and face and once I made the decision to stop

drinking

, I immediately went into therapy and we went through all my journals, so the book really started to write itself, within two weeks of therapy, I thought I was ready to write a book.

Wow, yeah, because I thought I wouldn't publish it, I mean publish a memoir 39, you know, it's like people usually wait until the end, you know, so I thought and mine are already 400 pages long. I don't know much about the healing process of rediscovering the person I was and who I was allowing myself to become and how destructive I was actually being in my life and what I was trying to let go of and not deal with because I'm a very open and honest person. I was the first one to do it, I mean, I would tell all my friends that they all knew all these stories, and I would say I know I'm

drinking

too much, like it was never something I was hiding behind. all so they would know first thing in the morning, sometimes you were having a drink, it's yeah, mm-hmm, I just poured my glitter cup and your husband, what did he say at that moment, you know, he, he, he?

I didn't really say much, I mean, no one really said much other than are you sure you know right now you know and I'm nervous enough to even go to a school assembly like where did you do it when you tracked? When you're looking at this and the therapy and the things you've learned, where is that comfort? Where does that nervousness and anxiety come from? I think it just comes from a place of not understanding what. The real perception that people had of me was, I mean, I knew who I was, but I had to rediscover a lot of who I wanted to be to the world because I really am authentically myself and to be that I had to be stronger than I was at that time. sense.

At that time, you know, people really understood me at that time simply because I was like them, you know, so they could relate to me and I realize in writing this book how many

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people and how many people have grown since the reality show. because it was a long time ago and everyone is my age, they've been through a lot of the same things that I've been through and I just went through it on a public platform, you know the things that you open up about is extremely vulnerable and extremely brave, so you just mentioned the mm-hmm reality show that you got addicted to, I mean how many years ago, I mean I was 22, yeah, I got married at 22, so that was right when you guys got married, yeah, our first.

Even when they lived together, I was a virgin and you know, when the world got to know everything about you quickly, they really did and it was my dad's idea, like my dad was like, "I really want people to understand you and know that you ". You're human, you know, because if they hang out with you while you're on the couch, they'll really understand who you believe. I mean, you know, you talk about past relationships, you talk about abuse,

marriage

, divorce, addiction, in this memoir, right? I think it was a mistake to open up to the world so early, oh no, it was the most empowering thing I could do on a newlywed show.

Oh, I guess making

newlyweds

is what made people. I mean, it's what launched my brand. What launched that was good, you think you know, was that the absolutely right thing. I would go back and do it all. It's never something I wouldn't do again. You just know, maybe I would have done a third season. I met Eric. It was okay, these people couldn't come back to me, yeah, I've let these doors open too many times and it's been very destructive and once I met Eric, it really changed everything, I mean, he must be, I don't know him. well but just believable but strong but he also saw you when you were like you said not in 2017 when she gets over 2017 yeah so how long was she not with Eric?

Eric and I have been together May 21st it will be 10 years 10 years we were having fun I mean it wasn't like it wasn't dark and it wasn't dark it wasn't like I was dancing on the tables and like there were never any drugs or anything like that, I mean, it was really just the alcohol got to me, what about being a mom, being a mom? And well, a lot of wine drinking with my parents' divorce because it was something very unexpected and painful for your foundation to be shaken and I didn't know my place. It was that I didn't know my place with my mother and my father and how to be there for both of them and how to know how to be a family, so it was very confusing, especially because I was starting my own family when all this happened, so I was concentrating in the good moments of having Maxwell and being afraid after something really very close, unexpectedly, so I felt a lot of joy at that time in my life, but I also pushed back the pain of my parents' divorce and that.

I really started climbing because I didn't really start not really knowing how to be. I'm like a mother. I'm not living the example that I would like my children to be, you know, live by their own lives and you know. How can I do this? My parents wouldn't have done this to me. I mean, my dad was like a preacher and my mom, my mom was like my right hand, like she was always there for me and they never drank, how is she? The relationship with them now is incredible, like reading an open book, it's like connecting our family on such a deep level and my father and I, although I let him go as a manager, I now have him as my father and that was very, very Important for me.

We have that relationship and through all of that, I mean, he went on the book tour with me, he was on the sidelines still cheering me on and I wasn't controlling everything because he was under my control. I wanted to, I knew what I had to do. Myself, you know, but my father and my mother were actually better than I thought, it was more painful, I think for me than for them, yes, I could see that yes, Jessica Simpson is with us. I can't believe we haven't talked. for you in such a long time Oh, as we grew up together, we did, we talked about some heavy things in your open book of memoirs, but it sounds like you're in a great place now, well, it's so much freedom I feel like releasing all of this, oh.

You can say you talked about all this stuff, I mean heavy stuff with your friends, just the world, everything about this, it's just the world and honestly, when I sat down with my therapist I was like, "Okay, this has happened, "It's sexual abuse, it's my parents' divorce." In my divorce, you know, it was like I owned all these things in my life, about being bullied or all that, and the therapist literally looked at me and me and said people don't admit this in five years, but you already know what you need. Healing is an incredible step and your healing will be much faster and it was because I knew exactly what I needed to overcome and by going through those fears I felt great empowerment as a woman, as a mother, as a wife. just being present and I really mean, I feel like I'm truly myself and that's what I'm offering to the world and you know, making the audiobook was so healing for me, it was really difficult, really intense, it was five days in a row, but The music that I had made was the music that I had written right before I got sober and then there was another song that I wrote right after, I thought, called Heartbeat, but in the other songs you can hear my journey and it really ends and completes the audiobook after hear it.

For me, it talks about my stories, the music in the end is the best, it is simply the best, well, no, no, you talk about the heartbeats, there is one called one's party, which one is yes, that is abandonment, abandonment, It's about your relationship with yourself, it's about your reflection in it. mirror is about you know, I hate you, I love you, you know, it's like, you know, it's all these things that we think about, you know, our inner thoughts, you know, and I'm like and it claims that I'm more than my body. I am more than my wealth you know I am more than what everyone says I am and what people are focusing on and I really had to find my heart and see that reflection and feel worthy of feeling beautiful and you really just know how to be humble and know that it is just a moment we all go through.

I am something daily. I am weekly. You know, look what you have now. Yes, you have something amazing. Kids, you have a solid, wonderful partner, yes, thank you, and I mean, look at that and think well, you know you had to go through a lot to make it. I did, but it's 2020. Please keep coming back. I'm absolutely you and I really missed you Jessica, thank you, I missed you all, we all did, thanks for coming back, we love you Justin, I know you would absolutely adore Eric, he would make you meditate and drink tea. time, yes, my husband wakes up at four in the morning every morning and has like his chi gong instructor and other dong instructors.

He didn't know that he needed my gong to be a boss. You can talk. I'm drinking mint, rosemary and fennel tea. was that I will definitely drink haste, we need a Gong Gong and then I can have a chi Chi come literally wake up so early. I have like texting him when I'm awake. I never wake up next to him because I know he's like downstairs and I eat like eight cups of tea in his, please leave me alone. New York Times bestselling book and audiobook, open book Jessica, you.