The release of Jessica Simpson‘s memoir was one of the few high points of the trash fire year that was 2020. Her behind-the-scenes stories of childhood abuse, secretly battling addiction, and of course dating a series of famous men were powerful, shocking, juicy — everything you want from a Hollywood tell-all.
And now the paperback edition of Open Book is out — with a few extra little goodies! Not only is there a new introduction, but Jessica has also included some entries from the diary she kept all that time!
Related: Jessica Talks Marriage & Losing Her Virginity
This week Entertainment Tonight got their hands on excerpts from some handwritten journal entries from the mid-2000s, right after her breakup with Nick Lachey.
As you may recall from their hit MTV reality show Newlyweds, Nick and Jessica were married from 2002 to 2006. After their devastating breakup, the 98 Degrees singer moved on surprisingly quickly, getting into a relationship with Vanessa Minillo — the woman who would eventually become Vanessa Lachey — less than a year later! That’s right — he technically married his rebound.
Eventually the pop star would find her own happiness with Eric Johnson, but long before that she was a brokenhearted 26-year-old divorcée, watching her ex-husband and his new lady hitting the town.
The I Wanna Love You Forever may have put on a brave face for the cameras, but in her room, where no one could see, she was pouring out her feelings into her diary. She wrote:
“So, Nick, you’re with another already? Seems that you forgot the love you spoke to me. I’m saddened beyond belief. Alone in the dark, with no one to call my own.”
Inneresting how injured she felt by Nick moving on — considering she was the one who was emotionally unfaithful. In her book, Jessica revealed she got way too close with her Dukes of Hazzard co-star Johnny Knoxville:
“It was like Johnny and I were prison pen pals, two people who wanted so much to be with each other but were kept apart [by our] respective spouses. There was something Nick wanted from me that I no longer had. An emptiness I couldn’t fill.”
And though the two never cheated, Jessica makes it clear she did consider her relationship with Johnny a “betrayal”:
“It’s funny, I know, because I placed such an emphasis on s*x by not having it before marriage. After I actually had s*x, I understood that the emotional part was what mattered. And Johnny and I had that, which seemed far more of a betrayal to my marriage than s*x.”
Her emotional infidelity wasn’t even close to the only reason for the decline of her marriage, however. And it didn’t stop her heart from breaking at the sight of Nick with another woman.
Wow. We can’t wait to see more from what was already one of the best memoirs ever! The paperback edition of Open Book is out now!
[Image via Adriana M. Barraza/WENN.]