Jessica Simpson Admits to an 'Emotional Affair' With Johnny Knoxville While Married to Nick Lachey
02/05/2020 04:08 pm EST
Jessica Simpson is opening up about an "emotional affair" she had with Johnny Knoxville as she was married to ex-husband Nick Lachey and filming the 2005 Dukes of Hazzard remake with the Jackass star. In a new excerpt from her new memoir, Open Book, Simpson admits to feeling she had betrayed her marriage with Lachey, despite never getting physical with Knoxville.
"I could share my deepest authentic thoughts with him, and he didn't roll his eyes at me. He actually liked that I was smart and embraced my vulnerabilities," Simpson wrote, as per PEOPLE. "He believed in me and made me feel I could do anything."
The singer continues she "felt a force drawing [us] together," which made her wonder why she was "open" to that kind of connection while in her marriage. "Now I was afraid I couldn't trust myself," she continued.
The acceptance she felt in her relationship with Knoxville was something she had only ever felt with her father, Joe Simpson, at that point, and "certainly not [Lachey]." Despite the connection escalating to something physical, Simpson said she felt a "betrayal" of her marriage when they were together.
"First off, we were both married, so this wasn't going to get physical," she writes. "But to me, an emotional affair was worse than a physical one. It's funny, I know, because I had 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. Johnny and I had that, which seemed far more of a betrayal to my marriage than sex."
Simpson and Lachey divorced in 2005 after just three years of marriage, and Simpson revealed on Wednesday's episode of The Dr. Oz Show when asked about her relationship today with her ex, "There is not one."
Photo credit: L. Cohen/WireImage/Getty
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