When Jessica Simpson first met Eric Johnson in 2010, she called it “the best meeting of my life.”
After experiencing her doomed marriage to Nick Lachey, another ’90s star, on a reality TV show, it seemed like she had finally found stability.
But this week, after months of rumors, Simpson and Johnson announced the end of their own 10-year marriage – with the singer revealing that “Eric and I are living separately and going through a painful situation in our marriage. »
Page Six learns that Simpson, 44, and Johnson, 45, who share three children, have already hired divorce lawyers and their sprawling Hidden Hills, Calif., estate has been listed for $17.9 million .
A family source initially told us the couple split in September, adding that they feared Simpson was “in a bad way.”
Another source said she was worried about Simpson – saying she had been absent from school functions, where she had been a familiar face supporting her daughters Maxwell “Maxi” Drew, 12, and Birdie Mae, 5 years old, and his son Ace Knute, 11 years old.
At the time, representatives for the couple remained silent, although Simpson and Johnson were seen without their wedding rings.
Simpson, who rose to fame with her 1999 hit “I Wanna Love You Forever,” has long spoken about substance abuse issues — alcohol and diet pills — that stemmed from her troubled childhood, including sexual abuse by a friend. the family.
But in recent years, Simpson said her confidence has grown and she boasts a very slim figure that she attributes to her “willpower.”
His new body indicated the family source. “She was suddenly 21 again – except when she was 21 for real, she was a married TV star who had to behave.
“In the past, she always had to kill herself at the gym and via starvation diets to lose weight and keep it off,” the source added. Now, with her weight loss, “she started wanting to sow her wild oats in a way she never could.”
Simpson, who has spoken openly about his battle with alcohol, has been sober since 2017. But even though the family source insisted Simpson doesn’t drink, Johnson fears other issues may have taken over.
“To be fair to Jess, Eric has so checked out – he’s been so done with her for a while now and so infidelity on his part isn’t out of the question,” the source admitted. “But it’s not out of the question on his part either.”
Neither Johnson nor a representative for Simpson responded to requests for comment.
After largely turning away from music and launching her multimillion-dollar fashion brand, Simpson opened up about her struggles as a young woman in the music industry in her 2020 memoir, “Open Book.”
In it, she revealed that she had been sexually assaulted between the ages of 6 and 12 by the daughter of a family friend – a girl only a year older than her – and admitted that she depended on alcohol for her nerves while dating John Mayer, who made her nervous. doesn’t feel safe after her divorce from Lachey.
She spoke about the burden of her weight issues starting at age 17, saying that’s when music producer Tommy Mottola told her she needed to lose 15 pounds.
Although she only weighs 118 pounds – she’s only 5 feet three inches tall – this led the singer to turn to diet pills in order to drop to 103 pounds.
Simpson continued to take diet pills for “the next twenty years,” she revealed in the book.
She later admitted that she had gained and lost 100 pounds three times in her life, the most recent being after the birth of her youngest child, Birdie, in 2019.
In 2021, Simpson revealed that she threw away her scale to focus on her overall health.
“It was like a Ouija board,” she explained at the time. “I have no idea how much I weigh. I just want to feel good and be able to zip up my pants. If not, I have another size. I have all sizes. I really tried my best to not let that define me.
Still, she faced public scrutiny regarding her weight, with commenters accusing her of using Ozempic. “Oh, Lord. I mean, it’s not, it’s the will,” she told Bustle last year.
“I wonder: do people want me to drink again? Because that’s when I was heavier. Or do they want me to have another baby? My body can’t do it.
It’s not just his weight that has people fearing for Simpson’s well-being.
In 2022, she appeared cursing while giving a video tour of her children’s rooms for an online Pottery Barn ad.
The majority of comments under the post were filled with users discussing Simpson’s appearance and speech.
“Is she okay?” one person wrote, while another claimed: “It’s annoying, it seems like she has trouble speaking and even mumbling.” Not to mention his appearance is shocking.
Simpson responded by saying, “Even though I’ve learned to block out the destructive noise…people’s comments and judgments can still hurt deeply with their incessant ‘you’ll never be good enough.’
“The most important thing I have learned over the last five years, without alcohol being a safeguard against escapism, is that I CAN and STILL get through it,” a- she added.
Simpson met Johnson, a former Patriots defensive tackle, through mutual friends.
“We were connected through both divorce and being heartbroken and knowing who we wanted for the rest of our lives,” she told Access Hollywood.
The singer – who has a net worth of $200 million mainly thanks to her fashion brand, Jessica Simpson Collection – said she had a prenup with Johnson, after admitting she never signed one before her first marriage to Lachey.
Although she married and became a mother with Johnson, Simpson revealed that her drinking came to a head in October 2017 when she failed to show up to her children on Halloween.
“Honestly, I couldn’t even tell you who made them. I was just dizzy and confused, and I just wanted to go to sleep,” Simpson told Hoda Kotb on “Today” in 2020, “I didn’t take them to the door. I didn’t show up for my family. I took the photo and made the whole world believe I was there.
The next day, Simpson pledged to stop drinking and start working with a therapist. “I just realized I had to give up,” she admitted.
Now, 14 years after his last album, Simpson is back in the studio recording new music in Nashville.
“I can’t wait for you to hear the soundtrack to my soul,” she wrote on Instagram in December.
“This comeback is personal, it’s an apology to myself for putting up with everything I didn’t deserve,” she said in November, sparking new rumors that things had fallen apart between her and Johnson.
“Their marital problems have seemed stifling for some time,” a source told People this week. “She needs to move on for her own well-being.”
