Jessica Simpson 'Wanted So Much' To Be With Johnny Knoxville During Marriage To Nick Lachey
Jan. 31 2020, Updated 2:36 p.m. ET
Jessica Simpson may deny rumors she hooked up with Johnny Knoxville while married to Nick Lachey, but in her new book exclusively obtained by RadarOnline.com before its February 4 release date, the singer does admit to "wanting so bad to be with” her Dukes of Hazzard co-star.
"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 their "respective spouses," Simpson writes in her bombshell new memoir "Open Book."
Simpson and Knoxville were rumored to have had a fling in 2005, right as her marriage to her 98 Degrees husband was falling apart.
"There was something Nick wanted from me that I no longer had,” she wrote. “An emptiness I couldn't fill."
And it seemed Knoxville could fill that gap.
Simpson admits she began flirting with the star on set, and the two were soon sending “love letters” back and forth. The “I Wanna Love You Forever” singer revealed she had a better emotional connection with Knoxville than with her husband.
"It's funny, I know, because I placed such an emphasis on sex by not having it before marriage. After I actually had sex, 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 sex,” she shared in the book.
As Simpson and Knoxville grew closer, she and Lachey drifted further apart. Eventually, even appearing together for their MTV reality show, Newlyweds, became a tough task. Constantly seeing Lachey’s name linked to other women didn’t help either.
"There were so many tabloid stories about Nick in strip clubs or talking to girls that I just didn’t know what to believe. Did he feel caught in this marriage?” Simpson confessed. “He kept putting himself into situations where he could be so easily accused of cheating. It was self-sabotage. And I was supposed to stay home and be Betty Crocker?"
Simpson writes that she thought Nick was threatened by her and her booming career, and when she tried to tell him stories about her role as Daisy Duke, he refused to listen.
When they did talk, the conversation would often deteriorate quickly, and often end with her feeling alone.
"We were not one of those couples that screamed at each other, let whatever fly out of our mouths, and then make mad, passionate love,” she penned. “No, we would yell at each other, and then he would go out of town and not answer his phone. Vegas or Miami with his boys. Or he would just stay out late to teach me a lesson.”
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“He had a group of guy friends who used him to get into places and enjoy VIP treatment at strip clubs and bars. He liked that scene, and I thought it was gross,” Simpson revealed.
