Singer and business mogul Jessica Simpson is ready to open up about her past struggles.
In her new memoir “Open Book,” Simpson revealed that she was sexually abused at the age of 6. She wrote, “When I 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 revealed, “I wanted to tell my parents. I was the victim but somehow I felt in the wrong.”
Simpson eventually mustered up the courage to tell her parents when she was 12. She wrote, “We never stayed at my parents’ friend’s house again, but we also didn’t talk about what I had said.”
Along with the trauma from the abuse, Simpson was struggling with the demands of her skyrocketing career, which led her to self-medicate with alcohol and stimulants. She wrote, “I was killing myself with all the drinking and pills.”
In the early 2000s, Simpson rose to fame with her debut single “I Wanna Love You Forever,” and eventually became a well-known name with her reality show “Newlyweds” with ex-husband Nick Lachey. She went on to run a billion-dollar clothing line, the Jessica Simpson Collection.
Jessica decided to get sober after a 2017 Halloween party. According to her memoir, she told her close 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.”
The 39-year-old shared in the new issue of People magazine, “Giving up the alcohol was easy. I was mad at that bottle. At how it allowed me to stay complacent and numb.”
Simpson went through therapy, which she admitted was tough. She pointed out, “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.”
She emphasized, “With work, I allowed myself to feel the traumas I’d been through.”
Of the decision to tell her story, Jessica said, “It’s been a long hard deep emotional journey, one that I’ve come through the other side with pure happiness and fulfillment and acceptance of myself. I’ve used my pain and turned it into something that can be beautiful and hopefully inspiring to people.”
People
Simpson is now a mom of three with husband Eric Johnson, who she married in 2014.
“Open Book” hits bookstores on February 4.