Jessica Simpson Reveals She Turned To Drugs And Alcohol After Being Sexually Abused As A Child

Jessica Simpson Reveals She Turned To Drugs And Alcohol After Being Sexually Abused As A Child
Jessica Simpson has a memoir coming out soon called “Open Book” where she reveals being sexually abused as a child and how she later turned to “drinking and pills” in order to cope.
Ahead of the book’s release on February 4th, an excerpt has been published in People magazine where Simpson writes that the abuse began at a family friend’s house when she was 6 years old and sharing a bed with the family’s daughter.
“It would start with tickling my back and then go into things that were extremely uncomfortable…I wanted to tell my parents. I was the victim but somehow I felt in the wrong,” she writes.
The pop star continues by saying she revealed the abuse to her parents when she was 12, while they were in the car.
“I told you something was happening,” Simpson recalls her mother, Tina, yelling at her father, Joe.
“Dad kept his eye on the road and said nothing,” she writes. “We never stayed at my parents’ friends house again but we also didn’t talk about what I had said.”
The mum of three goes on to say that she turned to abusing drugs and alcohol in order to block out the events and deal with the pain. While she’s been sober now since November 2017 she recalls a very dark period in her life prior.
“I was killing myself with all the drinking and pills,” she writes. “Giving up the alcohol was easy. I was mad at that bottle. At how it allowed me to stay complacent and numb.”
Simpson says giving up alcohol was “easy” and committing to twice-a-week therapy sessions was at first a challenge but ultimately rewarding.
“When I finally said I needed help, it was like I was that little girl that found her calling again in life,” Simpson told People. “I found direction and that was to walk straight ahead with no fear. Honesty is hard but it’s the most rewarding thing we have. And getting to the other side of fear is beautiful.”
News of Simpsons memoir was shared on her 39th birthday in October where she revealed her book would cover everything from her marriage to “98 Degrees” singer Nick Lachey, to their wildly popular MTV series “Newlyweds,” to the couple’s eventual divorce in 2006.
Simpson went on to marry former NFL player Eric Johnson in 2014 and the two share children Birdie Mae, 10 months, daughter Maxwell Drew, 7, and son Ace Knute, 6 together.
Images: Instagram