Jessica Simpson Opens Up About Divorce With Nick Lachey in New Memoir

Gettyimages | Scott Gries

Jessica Simpson, the former pop icon, has been on quite the tumultuous ride over the last several years but is finally getting a chance to open up about her experiences and tell her story. A new memoir that she has written titled 'Open Book' is expected to be released, come February. In the candid book, Simpson delves into the rocky divorce that she and her ex-husband, Nick Lachey, went though, revealing a lot of behind-the-scene details that had never been shared with the public.

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Simpson and Lachey are most well-known for their television show they starred in on MTV back in the early to mid-2000s appropriately named 'Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica. Both, though, had established highly successful musical careers, with Simpson being a one-woman show and Lachey, as a member of the boy band 98 Degrees.

Simpson recalled in her new book how the two first met and that there was 'love at first sight'. In 1998, when I was 18, I met Nick Lachey of the group 98 Degrees at a Hollywood event," she recalled. "Hi I’m Nick,’ he said. Hello, my life. I thought." Simpson credits the manner of that meeting as the impetus for them getting married four years later. "Nick loved the fact that I was so strong in my faith and that I had this wide-eyed innocent approach to life. When he proposed in 2002, I said yes," she wrote.

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While the marriage seemed to be going strong for quite some time, there were destructive forces at play. Simpson shared that the anxieties they each had about their careers was one of the main factors for the problems within their marriage.

"We had been together almost seven years when I told Nick, ‘I think I want a divorce.’ I later heard that he told the press he was blindsided," Simpson shared. "I don’t know how. At that point we were not even speaking to each other. Maybe he was just shocked that I stood up for myself. I don’t think he ever thought I would take the leap."

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The subsequent divorce that would take place soon after was devastating for Simpson, not only emotionally, but financially. This was because Simpson had had a more successful career than her husband and unfortunately, didn't consider signing a prenuptial agreement prior to saying their vows. The result was that Simpson was obligated to pay Lachey twelve million dollars in the divorce settlement proceedings.

However, it must be true that time heals all wounds. Since their divorce, both musical artists have found new marriages and now have kids of their own. For Simpson, she married Eric Johnson, a former NFL player, and have three children together. As for the Drop the Mic host, Lachey married the television personality, Vanessa Minnillo, and have three of their own.

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Simpson's memoir, Open Book, is truly a tell-all story that even goes to her addiction with alcohol and pills after she suffered sexual abuse. In order to cope with the abuse, she was heavily reliant on alcohol and drugs, even being told by clinical professionals that she could die if she kept her habits up. "I was killing myself with the drinking and pills," she wrote in the book. Fortunately, she's past those hard times and it's got to feel cathartic to finally get those thoughts and feelings off her chest.