The Truth About Jessica Simpson's Relationship With Nick Lachey

At the time of their relationship, Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey were one of the most high-profile superstar pairings. The celebs established themselves in the music industry in the late 1990s and found each other when Simpson was 18 and Lachey was 25. It was only a matter of time before the proverbial wedding bells would toll.

Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson stood at the altar and said "I do" with the belief that they really loved one another. Alas, the honeymoon period faded for the 2000s couple in a short time, with the added pressure of the entire world watching them on MTV's "Newlyweds: Nick & Jessica." From "chicken or fish" to camping à la Lachey, "Newlyweds" left viewers with a flawed but funny picture of the stars and their marriage. The Ringer called the program "an early-aughts time capsule" and "an anthropological triumph."

All these years later, the Simpson-Lachey story remains one of the more scrutinized tales in Hollywood. As for what did happen between Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson? And as for why these two ultimately called things off? Read on.

Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey's dreams of stardom would lead both of them to the 1998 Hollywood Christmas Parade (per EW). When their paths crossed at the holiday event, it was game over.

"It was the smallest moment, two people locking eyes," Simpson wrote in "Open Book." "He came over, walking in a more casual version of the onstage boy-band saunter I'd come to see him do time and again, but still purposeful. 'Hi, I'm Nick,' he said. Hello, my life, I thought." 

The couple reunited soon after the parade at a Teen People Party in Boca Raton, Florida. Jessica Simpson remembered in "Open Book" that she was at the event with momager Tina Simpson, and Nick Lachey was there with his mom. As legend has it, Nick told his mother, "Mom, your mission for tonight is to get me in good with this girl." Jessica confided in Tina, too: "That's the man I'm going to marry," she said.

Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson were both so busy being pop music stars that they spent much of their relationship talking to each other on the phone. "We were both concerned about our careers, and our anxieties just seemed to feed off each other," Simpson wrote in "Open Book." Eventually, she told Lachey that the two of them "needed to take a break...just to see what would happen if we both focused solely on work." 

Despite the idea that they would be individuals and tend to their respective careers, Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson stayed in contact and remained supportive. As Simpson recalled in "Open Book," when "Irresistible" album sold 120,000 copies in its first week, Lachey sent flowers and a card. "I'm very proud of you and with what you're doing in your life," she said he wrote. "I'm happy I can be a part of it. I love you." A period "of calling and not calling each other" continued as Simpson toured with Destiny's Child. Things changed again for her and Lachey in the fall of 2001.

Jessica Simpson was all in when it came to wedding planning, but Nick Lachey was more interested in watching the budget. In "Open Book," Simpson shed some light on the legal conversation Lachey initiated at the time. He wanted to talk about a prenuptial agreement, but she was not interested. 

In her memoir, Simpson pulled back the curtain on how things really went: "Part of the tabloid mythology of our marriage is that my dad played hardball and refused. No, this was an intimate discussion between a man and his soon-to-be wife. Which is to say that I exploded." Even though her dad wasn't the driving force in dropping the prenup talk, she claimed he "was awful through the whole engagement" and against the marriage.

In preparation for the big day, Simpson said she followed the "extremely strict diet" that had begun in her teen years at her record label's urging. As she wrote in "Open Book, " "I had upped my dosage of diet pills and was eating even less to be super-thin for the wedding. Speedy and hungry, I was easy to set off."

As Jessica Simpson shared in her "Open Book" memoir, the newly minted Lacheys became even more famous with their reality show on MTV, "Newlyweds: Nick & Jessica." The '00s series set the couple up for drama, and they had to deal with the duality of living their lives and becoming entertaining caricatures of themselves. Simpson wrote, "When the show premiered on August 19, it was like someone slammed the accelerator on our lives and marriage, pushing it to the highest possible speed."

Both Simpson and Lachey have acknowledged the problems that their "Newlyweds" personas created. "Jessica and I began playing these parts even when we were by ourselves," Lachey told Rolling Stone. "It became a truly blurred line. There was a question about what truly was our reality."

Even the activities captured on the show weren't always real-life. The camping trip episode in season one was production's idea, not the couple's. Simpson recalled in "Open Book," "As Nick did stuff like load the car or cook the burgers, I asked aloud, 'Am I supposed to be helping?' Not so much to fulfill my role as a new wife but to act out my role as a character." So, whose idea was "Newlyweds" to begin with? None other than Joe Simpson, Jessica's dad. As she recounted in her book, Papa Joe pitched the reality series in hopes of getting his eldest's music more MTV airtime. The show was a lot more than anyone had bargained for though.

Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey continued to have trouble with one another and grew more distant. Rumors began to swirl about divorce and infidelity on both sides, particularly regarding Lachey's night at a bachelor party and Simpson's time with her "The Dukes of Hazzard" co-star Johnny Knoxville. In "Open Book," Simpson noted she and Knoxville "were both married, so this wasn't going to get physical." The singer continued, "But to me, an emotional affair was worse than a physical one." 

The couple downplayed their strife to Diane Sawyer on "Good Morning America" in 2004, and according to Simpson, they used the attention and speculation as fuel to try to succeed in their marriage. She explained in "Open Book," "We didn't want to give anybody the satisfaction of seeing us publicly humiliated with a divorce, so we continued to play our 'Newlyweds' roles. Sometimes we did this so well that we convinced each other." Lachey had a slightly different point of view at the time, stating to Rolling Stone, "I wasn't trying to defend myself in the press. I was trying to defend my marriage to my spouse."

The couple worked as "a team" once more for a trip to Iraq, with a stop at an air base in Germany, to entertain and spend time with the troops (per People). After the excursion, Simpson wrote that they gave marriage counseling a shot, but apparently, it did not save the relationship. 

2006 was a fresh start for both Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey. The 98 Degrees member released "What's Left of Me," which sold over 500,000 copies and went gold (via CBS News). That same year, "Total Request Live" VJ Vanessa Minnillo appeared in the music video for Lachey's post-split ballad "What's Left of Me." While it wasn't the first time their paths crossed, it set the wheels in motion. And as the now-couple recalled to Billboard, sparks flew when it was time to promote the clip on "TRL." Chatting with Tamron Hall about the first time she saw the visual for "What's Left of Me," Simpson said, "I feel like he showed it to me. I opened my doors back up to him one night, out of weakness ... He did play it for me that night, and it was heartbreaking."

After the divorce, Simpson focused on her clothing and lifestyle brand, the Jessica Simpson Collection. She also continued to pursue an acting career and got back in the dating game. In "Open Book," Simpson got into her life as a single woman and the beginnings of her tumultuous relationship with John Mayer, whom she "dated in secret for months." 

Though it couldn't have been painless, Lachey and Simpson were moving on without each other as the late 2000s carried them in different directions.

Now that interested parties have read "Open Book" and have asked their questions, it's clear that Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey are living separate, successful lives without the past intruding too much. After Nick and Vanessa Lachey became husband and wife, Simpson married retired NFL tight end Eric Johnson in 2014. The Lacheys share three children, and so do Johnson and Simpson.

In addition to happy personal lives, Lachey and Simpson are doing well professionally. Following his big win on "The Masked Singer" (he was the Piglet), Nick Lachey is making music and performing again with 98 Degrees. According to Cincinnati Enquirer, the boy band launched "98 Days of Summer" in June 2021, promising to drop "a new surprise for fans" every day. The group also has new music and live shows in the works.

Meanwhile, Simpson continues to tell her story through an Amazon deal. According to Variety, Simpson's memoir inspired a scripted series in addition to an unscripted docuseries. She also has not one, but two essays for Amazon Original Stories. When Simpson released the first piece in 2021, she wrote on Instagram, "I felt strong, resilient, and God-inspired through my pen teaching me as I was sharing with you ways to get to the other side of fear." 

Simpson and Lachey have walked through heartache, but they've "moved on," as Lachey said on "Today" in 2020, noting "there's definitely a mutual respect there."