Jessica Simpson acknowledges that she was crushed when her ex-husband Nick Lachey moved on with Vanessa Minnillo (now known as Vanessa Lachey).
On March 23, the fashion mogul re-released her memoir "Open Book." In the new edition, Jessica shares some previously unseen diary entries, including one that was written after Nick began dating Vanessa, to whom he's now married.
"So, Nick, you're with another already? Seems that you forgot the love you spoke to me," she wrote. "I'm saddened beyond belief. Alone in the dark, with no one to call my own."
Jessica gave her fans a look into her 4-year marriage with Nick in her book, indicating that their MTV reality show "Newlyweds" was the beginning of the end of the relationship. Marriage counseling didn't even work, she said. Jess knew is was officially over when she and Nick slept together after separating. There was "no connection" anymore, she wrote.
"When he walked out the door, I knew I would never see him again," she wrote.
Jessica and Nick were married from 2004 to 2008. After the divorce, Nick and Vanessa dated for five years before tying the knot in 2011. The couple shares three kids. Jessica, meanwhile, settled down with former NFL player Eric Johnson. They, too, share three kids.
Now 15 years after their split, Nick and Jessica hold no ill will toward each other. In early 2020, there was a confusion when Hoda Kotb mentioned that Nick and Vanessa sent Jessica a "gift" after her kids where born. Jessica later clarified that that wasn't true.
"My gift with Nick is that he is happy and that he is married, and you know, he has three beautiful children and he's a father and he's celebrated for that, but, you know, I don't really know," she told Andy Cohen. "I mean, that's really a gift to me because I thought that I crushed his heart. Because I don't think he believed that I could actually grow up…"
Around the same time, Nick said he hadn't read the book, but he's happy to hear about Jessica's life now. "There's definitely a mutual respect there," he said.