Jessica Simpson opened up about her life and Hollywood romances in her popular 2020 memoir, Open Book, and now, she's sharing a brand new juicy story from her past. The singer and fashion designer recently released a short story titled Movie Star: They Always Say They're Single in which she details a fling with a "massive movie star," who she doesn't name.
In the story, Simpson writes about first meeting the star prior to her marriage to Nick Lachey and then forming a connection with him years later that included meetups in nightclubs, a secret trip on a private jet, and the realization that he was still in a relationship with someone else. Read on to see what Simpson had to say about the mysterious affair and who fans think she's talking about.
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In Movie Star: They Always Say They're Single, Simpson explains that she first met the actor at a MTV Video Music Awards afterparty in 2001.
"This megastar, who I grew up thinking was so hot, eyeballed me up and down. Like he was undressing me with his eyes," she writes. While they talked at the party, she thought, "This wasn't love, but it was something dreamy. This is what they talk about when they talk about swooning."
She and the anonymous actor ran into each other a couple of days later at the gym and exchanged numbers, but nothing came of it. At the time, Simpson was on a break from her relationship with Lachey. She explains that they got back together five days after the party. Simpson and Lachey ended up being married from 2002 to 2006.
After her divorce, a 26-year-old Simpson was trying to find herself again and learn what she really wanted in a partner. During this time, a producer said they knew someone who was interested in her—the movie star from her past.
The star invited Simpson to hang out prior to an awards show, and they shared their first kiss. The relationship continued from there, with the two talking regularly, meeting up at a clubs, and hanging out at Simpson's friend's home.
Simpson knew the actor had been seeing someone, but he told her it was "completely over" and that the woman was moving out of their home. The singer believed him, in part because he would meet up with her so openly.
At one point, the actor invited Simpson to fly with him to the east coast where he was filming a movie, but when they arrived she learned that she would have to sneak into the hotel and that she wasn't staying in his penthouse suite with him. She says the actor had also expressed that he felt conflicted about wanting to have sex with her and spoke to a "spiritual advisor" about it.
When Simpson put all the pieces together—the secretiveness, him feeling like having sex was wrong—she began to believe that the actor was still with his girlfriend, and she already knew she didn't want to sleep with him.
"I still thought he was a total babe, but I was just not going to sleep with him," Simpson writes. "Yes, there was something sexy and enticing about all of this, but there was also something demeaning about it. I felt like a call girl."
She let him stay in her room that night. "We didn't have sex, and he had the nerve to be pissed," she writes. "I didn't care if he was my teenage fantasy come to life, this was not a choice that same girl, my younger self, would be proud of."
So, the next day, she called up a friend and left. She said the actor left her a voicemail "weeping" about her leaving him.
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While Simpson does not reveal who the celebrity was, some people have put forth guesses on Twitter.
"I 100% think Jessica Simpson's story is about Mark Wahlberg," wrote one Twitter user. "He was at the VMAs that year, he was a childhood crush and had a movie come out in 2007 and she said they went to a movie set."
Wahlberg was a popular guess. The gossip page DeuxMoi also posted a blind item about the story that implied the person involved was the Departed actor.
Another Twitter user guessed Jude Law based on an old Star magazine story. "Jude Law? 'Jude Law has been flooding newly single Jessica Simpson with emails, phone calls and text messages following their alleged romp at the Chateau Marmont hotel. A friend of the singer told the tabloid, "Jude is telling Jess that he 'hungers for her'…'"
Simpson did not share the story about the unnamed movie star in her memoir, but she did talk about other relationships, including with Lachey and with musician John Mayer. The "With You" singer writes in the book about having an "emotional affair" with her The Dukes of Hazzard co-star Johnny Knoxville while she was married to Lachey.
She shared that they wrote each other love letters and explained (via People), "I could share my deepest authentic thoughts with him, and he didn't roll his eyes at me. He actually liked that I was smart and embraced my vulnerabilities. He believed in me and made me feel I could do anything."
Today, Simpson has been married to her husband, Eric Johnson, since 2014. They have three children.
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