Nick Lachey Reveals ‘Scars’ From Jessica Simpson Marriage

Nick Lachey is offering up some rare comments about his marriage to ex-wife Jessica Simpson. The former boy bander, 51, opened up about the pain of his 2006 divorce from Simpson to a contestant on Season 3 of Netflix’s The Ultimatum, which premiered on Wednesday, Dec. 4.

“I, too, was previously married, divorced, so I understand the hurt, the scars that exist from that,” said Lachey, who as co-host of The Ultimatum advised the contestant not to let their “past define [their] future.”

He continued of his marriage to wife Vanessa Lachey, with whom he tied the knot in 2011, “What I truly always wanted in my life, which was to have a beautiful marriage and a beautiful family, if I hadn’t retained my belief in that, I wouldn’t have ever realized the beautiful life I have with this woman.”

The former 98 Degrees frontman and Simpson tied the knot in 2002, chronicling the chaotic early days of their marriage on MTV’s Newlyweds reality show. After three seasons, the couple announced they had split in November 2005, and Simpson filed for divorce the following month. Their divorce was then finalized in 2006.

In Simpson’s 2020 memoir Open Book, she revealed that her relationship with Lachey had its issues right off the bat. “My childishness, which seemed so cute and sweet when I was first with him, seems to annoy him. Now, everything I said seems to annoy him,” she wrote in the book.

She later referred to the dynamic of their marriage as a cycle. “I would accuse him of having a wandering eye, and he would rip into me, making sure I knew I was the one causing the problems in our marriage,” she wrote. “There was something Nick wanted from me that I no longer had, an emptiness I couldn’t fill, and neither could he. … 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. No, we would yell at each other, and then he would go out with his boys and not answer the phone.”

Lachey revealed on TODAY after the release of his ex’s memoir that he “obviously” had not read the book, adding, “But I’m certainly happy for her and her life; I know she is happy for us.”

Today, the Love Is Blind co-hosts are parents to sons Camden, 11, and Phoenix, 7, and daughter Brooklyn, 9. Simpson, meanwhile, married former NFL star Eric Johnson in 2014, and the two are parents to daughter Maxwell, 12, son Ace, 11, and daughter Birdie, 5.