Jessica Simpson reveals addiction struggle and childhood abuse

Jessica Simpson is many things—pop singer, reality star, a billion-dollar fashion maven. So when news dropped that she was penning a memoir, audiences were eager to get a peek inside her world, which seemed sunny and happy from the outside. But Open Book is likely to shock many with its candid revelations of her personal struggles with addiction and childhood abuse.Excerpts from the memoir were shared in a new feature on People, and Simpson is bravely, well, an open book. She doesn’t hold back about the hurdles she’s faced in her life and how she used to mask her pain with pills and alcohol. She admitted that when publishers approached her five years ago about writing a book about living her best life, she didn’t think she could go through with it.“I didn’t feel comfortable talking about myself in a way that wasn’t honest,” she told the publication. “I’m a horrible liar.”Instead, Simpson put pen to paper about the traumatic events in her life, the pressures she felt as she struggled with her career and the emotional pain she’s been dealing with as she tried to come to terms with an abusive situation that began when she was about six years old, and she shared a bed with the daughter of a family friend.

 

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Thank you @people for helping me share my story. There is so much beauty on the other side of fear and I hope my truth can help. I can’t wait to share #OpenBook with you. ?

A post shared by Jessica Simpson (@jessicasimpson) on Jan 22, 2020 at 7:01am PST

“It would start with tickling my back and then go into things that were extremely uncomfortable,” she writes in the book, out February 4. “I wanted to tell my parents. I was the victim but somehow I felt in the wrong.”She told her parents about the abuse when she was 12, and while the family friend never slept over again, her parents also never talked about it with her. Simpson reveals she never really dealt with any of it herself until years later through therapy and her work, and even then she often pushed down her anxieties with stimulants and booze.

 

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I can’t believe this day is finally here! This is the cover of Open Book, my memoir, which is coming out February 4th. This book has been both the hardest and most rewarding experience of my career so far. I can’t wait to share it with you. Head to the link in my bio and preorder if you want to get to know all of me?

A post shared by Jessica Simpson (@jessicasimpson) on Dec 4, 2019 at 5:31am PST

It all came to a head in 2017, when Simpson—at that point married to Eric Johnson with two kids—hit rock bottom at a Halloween party. It was there that she broke down in front of her closest friends and told them she needed to stop; even a doctor had told her that her life was in danger.“I was killing myself with all the drinking and pills,” she writes. “Giving up the alcohol was easy. I was mad at that bottle. At how it allowed me to stay complacent and numb.”What followed was a two-year journey involving plenty of support from friends, her parents and family, doctors and twice-a-week therapy. During that time she also had her third kid, baby girl Birdie, now 10 months old. As a result Simpson says she’s been sober ever since. Now she’s sharing her story with others through Open Book and is even releasing six new songs to help tell her story.“When I finally said I needed help, it was like I was that little girl that found her calling again in life,” she says. “I found direction and that was to walk straight ahead with no fear. Honesty is hard but it’s the most rewarding thing we have. And getting to the other side of fear is beautiful.”Now THAT’S living your best life.