Jessica Simpson's Mom Says Body Shaming Made the Singer "Want to Be a Recluse"

Tina Simpson is one proud mama.

The mother to Jessica Simpson and Ashlee Simpson Ross opened up about raising her daughters in the limelight during the April 14 episode of Today.

After marrying her now-ex Joe Simpson at age 18, Tina gave birth to Jessica at age 20 and Ashlee at age 24. "I was definitely a very young mother," she told Sheinelle Jones, "but it was, like, the only thing I ever wanted to do….It was just, like, my passion."

And it wasn't long before she recognized Jessica and Ashlee's talents. "For Jessica, like, it was very young because she was, like, 3 years old, and she'd be singing in the back of the car. It's like when she'd put a mic in her hand, like, she came alive and it was just her passion. I could just see it in her," she recalled. "And it was the same with Ashlee. That kid came out of my womb dancing."

Jessica Simpson's Open Book Memoir

So when they entered the industry, she tried to be protective. "We were very innocent, honestly, and starting it very naïve," Tina said while remembering Jessica auditioning for The Mickey Mouse Club as a preteen. "But because of that, I was not letting those kids out of my clutches. I was going to be the mother that stayed with my kids in that industry, and watch over them and make sure that they were never alone."

Still, she couldn't shield them from the public scrutiny they both faced. "It was really hard because they were judged by the world, obviously, and that was probably the most stressful thing is, like, just the negativity of, like, things people would say," Tina added. "I really taught them to just be fighters."

At one point during the interview, Tina looked back at how Jessica was body shamed. "I have to be honest," she said, "to me, the hardest thing with Jessica has been the weight because the way people judge her, it's unbelievable. Body shaming is a terrible thing, and no girl should have to go through that—or guy. Period. No one."

She also spoke about the impact these comments and headlines had on Jessica. "It made her want to be a recluse in a lot of ways," Tina continued, "and, you know, to hide out and not want to get out of her house or, you know, things like that. It just wasn't who she was."

In her memoir Open Book, Jessica looked back at the "hyperfocus" on her weight after she wore what were called "mom jeans" to a chili cookoff in 2009.

"Why does the cruel opinion of this world get to me?" she wrote at the time in a journal excerpt featured in the book and re-shared by People. "Has it become about how many people read something and are encouraged to believe it. Last week, I read back on my journals from '99 and I beat myself up about how fat I am before I even gave the world a chance to. Today, my heart breaks because people say I'm fat."

During a March interview with the magazine, the star shared how she didn't think "people always realized that there was a human being, a beating heart and working eyes with actual feelings behind those headlines and that words can hurt and stay with you for a lifetime."

"I spent so many years beating myself up for an unrealistic body standard that made me feel like a failure all of the time," she continued. "I am still a work in progress when it comes to self-criticism but now I have the tools to quiet those voices in my head when they speak up."

(E! and NBC are both part of the NBCUniversal family).