Jessica Simpson opens up about sexual abuse and addictions in new memoir
A new memoir is giving Jessica Simpson her voice back, after years of dealing with trauma and addictions she kept hidden from her fans. In Open Book, the actress/singer/entrepreneur shares an honest look into the challenges she faced while rising to the top.
Simpson writes about being the victim of sexual abuse that began when she was six-years-old, “when I shared a bed with the daughter of a family friend,” an exclusive excerpt from PEOPLE reads. “It would start with tickling my back and then go into things that were extremely uncomfortable.”
She added, “I wanted to tell my parents. I was the victim but somehow I felt in the wrong.”
When she was 12-years-old, Simpson did tell her parents about what she had experienced but she didn’t get the response she felt she needed. She explains that her mother slapped her husband’s arm confirming she had suspicions something was going on.
“Dad kept his eye on the road and said nothing,” Simpson writes in the book. “We never stayed at my parents’ friends house again but we also didn’t talk about what I had said.”
Her experiences as a child, as well as pressure from working in Hollywood led to an addiction fueled by alcohol and drugs. Simpson says she’s been sober since Nov. 2017 and with the help of therapy and the support of her family and friends.
“I was killing myself with all the drinking and pills,” she writes. Adding, “Giving up the alcohol was easy,” she says. “I was mad at that bottle. At how it allowed me to stay complacent and numb.”
Simpson will release an audio book and six new songs that will also help her tell her story.
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