“This megastar, who I grew up thinking was so hot, eyeballed me up and down. Like he was undressing me with his eyes,” Simpson, 42, wrote of the twosome’s first meeting at the 2001 Video Music Awards in an Amazon essay published on Wednesday, February 1.
The couple immediately became friends as the “Take My Breath Away” singer was going through one of her breakups with ex-husband Nick Lachey. Simpson and Lachey, 49, married between 2002 and 2006 following an on-off relationship.
Following the VMAs afterparty, the Texas native who did not name her mystery man “wasn’t ready” to take things further, but subsequently ran into him again at the gym in Los Angeles. She offered him to appear in one of her future music videos there. “‘You could be my lead guy,’ I offered to this man who made millions and millions per film,” she claimed in Wednesday’s essay.
The twosome’s relationship ended after Simpson reconciled with Lachey in September 2001, with the Employee of the Month star failing to contact the actor again. However, after her divorce from Lachey, Simpson reconnected with her mystery lover, who apparently initially kissed her at the Beverly Hills Hilton.
“I felt this warm rush all the way down my body to the tips of my toes in my wedges,” the Open Book author wrote. Simpson was upset when she saw red carpet photos of her alleged beau and his then-girlfriend, despite an intense first kiss.
“I was never ever in a million years going to be the other woman,” she claimed, asserting that the movie star told her their relationship was “completely over” and he was only interested in pursuing Simpson.
The two went on to have a whirlwind romance, attending nightclub events together and bonding over Simpson’s goddaughter’s birth. The fashion designer even made a visit to her man on a movie shoot, but she felt that she was merely there to “have sex” with her famous affair.
“Yes, there was something sexy and enticing about all this, but there was also something demeaning about it. I felt like a call girl,” Simpson recalled in the passage, noting it felt like he was trying to “hide” her from his “chick.” She continued: “I didn’t care if he was my teenage fantasy come to life, this was not a choice that same girl, my younger self, would be proud of.”
The Newlyweds alum left his room the next day, thereby ending their romance. Simpson married professional football player Eric Johnson in 2014. She had previously been linked to John Mayer, Jensen Ackles, Johnny Knoxville, and Tony Romo.
“I don’t feel like our marriage has been long, but I feel like I’ve loved Eric my whole life,” the Dukes of Hazzard star— who shares daughters Maxwell, 10, and Birdie, 3, and son Ace, 9, with her spouse — exclusively gushed to Us Weekly in April 2022. “I guess the moment I met him, it felt like a marriage.”
She continued at the time: “We rarely fight. If we do, it’s more conversational, and it’s not like, ‘He’s right or she’s right.’ It’s not about winning.”