Getting more intimate. Jessica Simpson gave more details about her divorce from Nick Lachey in a new paperback edition of her 2020 memoir, Open Book, which is out on Tuesday, March 23.
“So, Nick, you’re with another already?” Simpson, 40, wrote in a diary passage, referencing Lachey’s relationship with now-wife Vanessa Lacey, which came less than a year after the Simpson and her husband split in 2006. “Seems that you forgot the love you spoke to me.”
In Entertainment Tonight‘s preview of the new pages, Simpson added: “I’m saddened beyond belief. Alone in the dark, with no one to call my own.”
The Employee of the Month actress married the 98s Degrees singer, 47, in October 2002. They called it quits in November 2005 after three years of marriage and three seasons of starring on MTV’s Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica.
Simpson previously opened up about the pair’s relationship in Open Book, which was released in February 2020, explaining that although she wanted their marriage to “look perfect” on TV, it was far from it.
“I had the Instagram-girlfriend syndrome before it was a thing, and I wanted the world to see my husband in the best light because I was hopelessly in love with him,” she wrote, noting their marriage crumbled amid filming as her career continued to explode.
The Texas native, who wed Eric Johnson in 2014, detailed her marital woes with Nick, saying her career successes played a part in their split.
“I didn’t want to outshine him, because that just wasn’t what I knew,” she wrote. “He seemed so much older than me, my guide in everything. I want him to feel like he could show me all that he knew — about the business, about the world.”
Simpson, who later admitted to having an emotional affair with Dukes of Hazzard costar Johnny Knoxville during the marriage, added: “If Nick acknowledged how much I was working, he would see that he wasn’t, and he was too much of a hard worker to face that on.”
The “Sweetest Sin” singer filed for divorce in December 2005 and, according to her memoir, Nick had a harder time letting go than she did.
“Divorce is messy,” she wrote. “I wish we were the kind of people who could divorce and stay friends. We weren’t, and I regret that my actions hurt him.”
Nick has since moved on with Vanessa, 40, whom he married in 2011. The couple share three children, Camden, 8, Brooklyn, 6, and Phoenix, 4. In February 2020, he exclusively told Us Weekly that he had “not read a single word” of his ex’s book. He also claimed that Simpson had not reached out before it was published.
Simpson, for her part, shares three children, Maxwell, 8, Ace, 7, and Birdie, 2, with Johnson, 41.
In addition to publishing diary entries in the paperback version of her bestselling memoir, ET reported on Monday, March 22, that the “Take My Breath Away” singer wrote a fresh introduction talking about how she told her eldest daughter about her experiences with sexual abuse as a child.
The designer explained that she spoke with Maxwell after a reader became emotional about their own abuse in front of the duo at a book signing.
“When she walked away, Maxwell asked, ‘What was she talking about?’” Simpson recalled. “This was going to have to be the time for our talk. Parents have to seize these moments when you have your kids’ attention.”
Simpson revealed in the book that she was sexually abused by the daughter of a family friend from ages 6 to 12, to whom she sent a copy of the memoir in hopes it “brings healing.”
Listen to Us Weekly’s Hot Hollywood as each week the editors of Us break down the hottest entertainment news stories!
