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Affairs, addiction and sexual abuse: 6 bombshells from Jessica Simpson’s new tell-all book

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Jessica Simpson (Photo: Getty Images)
Jessica Simpson (Photo: Getty Images)

Cape Town – Jessica Simpson's memoir titled Open Book has revealed a few shocking secrets about the singer's life.

The tell-all book hit shelves this week and details everything from her affair while she was still married to Nick Lachey, to the time she says she was sexually abused at just six years old.

Here are six bombshells from Jessica Simpson's tell-all, Open Book:

1. Her affair with Johnny Knoxville

Jessica Simpson details what she called an "emotional affair" with her Dukes of Hazard costar, Johnny Knoxville, while both stars were married.

According to Entertainment Tonight, she writes in her memoir, "We were open about the challenges of our marriages and why we had to honour those vows by sticking with the marriage," while also revealing she would text Johnny "often at night with Nick passed out in bed".

She called them "prison pen pals" – "two people who wanted so much to be with each other but were kept apart – by bars, by our stars, by our respective spouses".

She never had sex with Johnny – it never got physical – though she says she feels an emotional affair is much worse, reports E! News.

2. Her marriage to Nick Lachey

Though Jessica and Nick appeared happy on TV, things weren't all sunshine and roses for the newlyweds.

After filing for divorce in 2005, in her memoir, she recalls seeing a documentary about Nick's new album, which featured several songs about her.

She invited him over to explain after he dropped his song and video, What's Left Of Me – featuring his now-wife, Vanessa Lachey. "He'd recreated our life for the video, casting his future wife Vanessa Minnillo to play me as this cold, unfeeling person. I knew he did this to hurt me," she writes.

When he came over, with his new album, they had sex one last time, she writes, reports E! News.

About the memoir Nick recently said on the Today show, "I'll be honest, I obviously haven't read the book, so I don't know what she said or what she revealed there, But I'm certainly happy for her and her life; I know she is happy for us."

3. Her tumultuous relationship with John Mayer

After her split from Nick Lachey, Jessica Simpson met John Mayer. The two started dating on-and-off. In her new book, she details the extent of their tumultuous relationship though, revealing that they broke up and got back together almost nine times.

According to Entertainment Tonight, the star says, "We were great at intimacy. We were great at loving each other. That was easy, but the relationship was very complex."

It was also her relationship with the Gravity singer that led to her break up with Tony Romo, she said, because he suspected she was cheating on him with John, which she wasn't, reports TMZ.

Jessica said her relationship with John continued. In a scathing piece from her book, she writes, "[John] had said all these things, practically asking my parents for my hand in marriage while I was in a serious relationship. Swearing to me up and down that he was a changed man.

"Now here I was, ready to pledge my love back, and to kiss him as the curtain came down. And it fell on my head... All this time, all those years, he was breaking up with me to torture himself enough to get good material."

4. Her sexual abuse

In her memoir, Jessica also recalls the moment she told her parents she was sexually abused at just six years old "when [she] shared a bed with the daughter of a family friend", reports E! News.

"It would start with tickling my back and then go into things that were extremely uncomfortable... I was the victim but somehow I felt in the wrong."

Jessica says she sort of buried the incident – or at least her family did. "Dad kept his eye on the road and said nothing," she remembers.

"We need stayed at my parents' friends house again but we also didn't talk about what I had said."

That seemed fine for a long time, until Jessica says she started abusing her body as a result.

5. Her apology to Ellen Degeneres

The mother of three recalls popping pills and drinking as a means of self-medicating to deal with the trauma of what had happened. But things got really bad when, in 2017, she woke up to take her oldest, Maxwell, to a school assembly, and had already had a drink by 07:30. She also felt too zoned out that Halloween, to dress her children in their costumes, reports People.

She hasn't had a drink since November 2017.

But she details all the ways in which addiction affected her life in her new book, recalling the time she had to run off stage while singing a tribute to Dolly Parton, and the moment she appeared on the Ellen Degeneres Show and just "couldn't find Ellen's rhythm during their interview".

"I want to say it here to Ellen and the viewers: I'm truly sorry," she writes in Open Book.

6. Her Tummy tuck and hospitalisation

Jessica details her battle with her weight and having a positive body image throughout her career before revealing, for her 35th birthday, she decided to get a partial tummy tuck to "get rid of the stretch marks and loose skin" from pregnancy.

She eventually had a full tummy tuck but was rushed to the hospital after getting an infection.

She secretly stayed there for nine days.   

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