Jessica Ann Simpson (born July 10, 1980) is an American pop music singer who rose to fame during the late 1990s. In the following decade, she starred with her then-husband Nick Lachey, in the MTV reality show Newlyweds, released her own line of Dessert Beauty and Dessert Treat beauty products and started a career as an actress whilst continuing her music career.

Biography

Early life and beginning

Simpson was born in Abilene, Texas and raised in Richardson, a suburb of Dallas, Texas. She is the daughter of Joe Truett Simpson (a former Baptist youth minister) and Tina Ann Drew (a former Sunday School teacher). She has a younger sister, Ashlee, who launched her own music career in mid-2004. Simpson started singing at the age of twelve as a part of her Baptist church choir. At the same age, she made an unsuccessful application for The New Mickey Mouse Club, which starred fellow pop singers Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake, among other future stars.

Simpson attended J.J. Pearce High School in Richardson, Texas. She was discovered singing at a church camp by a head of a small contemporary Christian record label and recorded an album over the next three years; however, the label folded before the record could be released. She dropped out in her senior year in order to tour and promote her demo album, which was funded by her grandmother, Joyce (thus the reason for the name of her 2004 holiday album, Rejoyce: The Christmas Album); she later earned her GED. During this time, she toured with the Christian Youth Conference circuit performing with Kirk Franklin, God's Property and CeCe Winans. She and her father sold copies of the album after her performances.

Tommy Mottola of Columbia Records obtained a copy of the album and, thinking she had potential as a pop singer, signed her as such. Christian influences can still be found in much of her music.

1999–2002: Pop music beginnings

In late 1999, Simpson released her debut album Sweet Kisses, which reached a peak of number twenty-five on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart and also made the top forty of the UK charts. The album proved to be a success, selling two million copies in the U.S. Her first single, the platinum-selling "I Wanna Love You Forever," reached the top five of the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 singles chart and the top ten in Canada and the UK. Her second single, a duet with then-boyfriend Nick Lachey of boy band 98 Degrees, "Where You Are", was a modest radio hit. The last single from the album, "I Think I'm in Love with You", was a top forty hit in the U.S. and a top twenty hit in Canada and the UK. In 2000, Simpson won two Teen Choice Awards for Choice Breakout Artist and Love Song of the Year ("Where You Are"). In 2000, Simpson appeared on the 98 Degrees video My Everything.

Released during the summer of 2001, Simpson's second effort Irresistible reached the top ten of the Billboard 200 and top twenty of the Canadian album chart. Despite this improvement over her debut, the album's sales were less than satisfactory; to-date, it has only managed to be certified gold in the U.S. for selling 500,000 copies. The title track lead single, "Irresistible", reached the top twenty in the U.S., Canada, and the UK, as well as the top forty in Australia. A follow-up single entitled "A Little Bit" was also released, but failed to achieve substantial success. In 2002, Columbia Records released a EP remix album titled This Is the Remix containing electro-dance remixes of Simpson's biggest hits.

2003–present: Marriage and career development

On October 26, 2002, Simpson married Nick Lachey. She famously announced that she remained a virgin until her wedding night, making Lachey the only man she had been with intimately. During the summer of 2003, Simpson and Lachey's reality show Newlyweds began airing on MTV. Although Simpson was moderately famous before the series began, the show is considered the crowning glory of her career.

Throughout the run of four seasons she seemed to epitomize the stereotypical dumb blonde, notably when she asked Lachey whether the Chicken of the Sea tuna she was eating was chicken or fish.

She also indicated that she believed that buffalo wings were made from actual buffalo. Her apparent ignorance helped turn the show into a huge hit, making the average rating for each episode about 1.4 million viewers. (The gaffe was also a running joke in a Pizza Hut commercial, where she was shown to be annoyed at having her intelligence mocked again.) When introduced to Interior Secretary Gale Norton, Simpson responded: "You've done a nice job decorating the White House". It has been suggested that her apparent ignorance is simply an act she has parlayed into various commercial, television and film endorsements^{citation needed]}.

Banking on the success of her new popularity, she appeared on a variety show with Lachey on the ABC called the Nick and Jessica Variety Hour in 2004. A pilot for a sitcom on ABC was also planned, but was rejected by network executives in May 2004. During that summer, Simpson won three Teen Choice Awards for Female Fashion Icon, Hottie Female, and Female Reality/Variety TV Star for Newlyweds. In 2005, the series won a People's Choice Award for Favorite Reality Show and wrapped shortly after.

Simpson's third album, In This Skin, was released during the summer of 2003 to coincide with the premiere of Newlyweds. Though initially the album was not a huge success, it rebounded on the charts when a special collector's edition was released in the spring of 2004. It subsequently reached a peak of number two on the Billboard 200 and the top forty of the UK charts, due largely to the success of Newlyweds. The album eventually proved to be her most commercially successful, selling almost three million copies in the U.S.; it also yielded arguably her most successful single to-date, "With You".

Simpson released a holiday album in late 2004 entitled ReJoyce: The Christmas Album, which sold moderately. During the summer of 2005, Simpson made her first major film appearance as Daisy Duke in The Dukes of Hazzard. The film debuted at number one on the U.S. box-office chart, grossing more than thirty million USD. One of the songs from the film's soundtrack, "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'", was sung by Simpson. The track won a People's Choice Award for Favorite Song from a Movie in early 2006.Her performance however, was lambasted by film critics, and she was nominated for worst supporting actress in the Razzie Awards;Simpson's sister Ashlee was also nominated for her role in the film Undiscovered.

In November 2005, after months of speculation, Simpson and her husband Nick Lachey officially announced that they had split. Simpson filed for divorce on December 16, 2005, citing "irreconcilable differences".^[1] She has asked the courts not to grant Lachey spousal support. The couple's divorce has been highly publicized worldwide. Lachey is reportedly trying to take half of the couples joint worth.^{citation needed]} The couple sold their Calabasas mansion to Malcolm in the Middle star, Justin Berfield for an undisclosed amount.

Simpson's next album, And the Band Played On, is set to be released late 2006 with Epic Records, ending her ties with co-owned Columbia Records. She has also started filming her second movie Employee of the Month, with Dane Cook, in New Mexico, as well as being signed on to star in her third movie, Major Movie Star. She launched a shoe collection that was set to be released in major department stores across the U.S. from February 2006.

Simpson was the subject of a controversial payola scandal when New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer filed a lawsuit on March 8 against Entercom Communications, for accepting gifts and payments in exchange for playing songs by Simpson and others. ^[2]

Public image

Early in her career Simpson's public image was that of a wholesome contradiction to the more sexual personas of other female teen singers. Simpson is a Baptist and using sexuality to sell records or attain fame was something she spoke out against^{citation needed]}. As she has matured into adulthood, this seems to have gone to the wayside^{citation needed]}. She began to appear scantily clad in photographs. The change in her public image came to a head in her music video for "These Boots are Made For Walking", wherein she appeared in a string bikini cavorting on a car while washing it.

Her public image as an airhead (fueled by the "character" she played on Newlyweds), coupled with her seemingly inexplicable change of heart on "selling with sex", caused much derision by the press. In 2006 singer P!nk released a song called "Stupid Girls" which directly mocked Simpson; in particular a line, "Maybe if I act like that/flippin' my blonde hair back/push out my bra like that" is delivered spoken-word in a fashion that emulates a spoken word section of Simpsons "Walking" cover. In the music video P!nk also mocks the music video for "Walking".

She recently also brought more attention to herself on March 16, 2006 when she apparently "snubbed" President Bush. This is from an article on MSNBC.com that explained how she decided not to attend a Republican fundraiser when in Washington. However, Simpson claims that even though she is a fan of and supports President Bush, she does not like to publicly proclaim her political views.

Discography

For more details on this topic, see Jessica Simpson discography.

Filmography

Released movies

• The Dukes of Hazzard (2005) – Daisy Duke
  • 2006 MTV Movie Awards; Sexiest Performance & Best on Screen Team( With Johnny Knoxville and Seann William Scott): Jessica Simpson (Nominated)(June 8th 2006)

Current

• Employee of the Month (2006) – Amy

Future movies

• Major Movie Star
• Dallas
• Baywatch
• Lovers And Players

Notes

Video

• Jessica Simpson in SNL parody: Tuna of the Dirt

External links

• Jessica Simpson's Official Website
• Jessica Simpson Videos on AOL Music
• Jessica Simpson at The Internet Movie Database
• Jessica Simpson at TV.com
• Jessica Simpson at NNDB