The new book by Jessica Simpson is certainly living up to its title. Simpson’s memoir, Open Book, has been filled with confessions about her personal life, from her marriage to Nick Lachey to revelations about the abuse she endured as a child. One of the big revelations has been her talking about her prior addiction to drugs and alcohol, which she detailed in an interview with Hoda Kotb on Today.
“I had started a spiral and I couldn’t catch up with myself,” Simpson said in the interview, via USA Today. “And that was with alcohol. I would say it openly to everyone. ‘I know, I know, I’ll stop soon. I’ll cut back.’ For me to cut back, like I’m an all-or-nothing girl, and so I didn’t know it was a problem until it was. I completely didn’t recognize myself.”
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Simpson went on to confess that she even had a special glitter-covered cup on hand for her booze. “I just realized that I had to surrender. It was time,” she added. “I had to give it up and I was ready. I’m not going to miss another day.”
In an excerpt from Open Book released to PEOPLE earlier this month, Simpson admitted that one Halloween she started drinking at 7:30 in the morning, and by that evening was too drunk to put her kids in their costumes.
“I was terrified of letting them see me in that shape,” she wrote, adding that she was “ashamed to say that I don’t know who got them into their costumes that night.”
After she took an Ambien to sleep that night, her guilt over the matter followed her the next morning.
“I slept in, afraid to see them, afraid I had failed them. I hid until they left, then drank,” she admitted, though she did see the moment as something of a wakeup call. She began calling her close friends telling them simply, “I need to stop. Something’s got to stop. And if it’s alcohol that’s doing this and making things worse, then I quit.”
More recently, Simpson shared a touching tribute to the late Kobe Bryant and the other eight victims of the Sunday morning helicopter crash in Calabasas, CA.
“My heart is completely broken for all the families and loved ones left behind trying to make sense of things in this tragic moment,” she wrote in the caption. “Vanessa, you are the woman and wife that championed your husband to greatness. My prayers are constant for everyone affected by this impactful loss.”
Open Book will be available to purchase starting Feb. 4.
