Jessica Simpson has admitted to having an “emotional affair” with Johnny Knoxville during her marriage to Nick Lachey.
WATCH: Jessica Simpson reveals Nick Lachey wanted to sign a prenup
Writing in her candid memoir Open Book, the star confessed that she formed an intense bond with her former co-star while they were filming the 2005 film, Dukes of Hazzard.
“I could share my deepest authentic thoughts with him, and he didn’t roll his eyes at me. He actually liked that I was smart and embraced my vulnerabilities,” Jess, 39, wrote.
“He believed in me and made me feel I could do anything.”
Jess was married to Nick Lachey at the time, and although she says the pair never got physical, she became emotionally close to Johnny, something she wrote felt like a “betrayal”.
“First off, we were both married, so this wasn’t going to get physical,” she wrote.
“But to me, an emotional affair was worse than a physical one. It’s funny, I know, because I had placed such an emphasis on sex by not having it before marriage. After I actually had sex, I understood that the emotional part was what mattered.”
She divulged, “Johnny and I had that, which seemed far more of a betrayal to my marriage than sex.”
Simpson and Lachey divorced in 2005 after seven years together and three years of marriage.
Jessica also opened up about her addictions in the book, and spoke about her relationship with alcohol and prescriptions drugs.
“I was killing myself with all the drinking and pills,” Jessica confessed in the book, which was recently excerpted in People.
Jessica gave up drinking in 2017 and has been sober since.
“Giving up the alcohol was easy. I was mad at that bottle. At how it allowed me to stay complacent and numb,” she wrote.
“When I finally said I needed help, it was like I was that little girl that found her calling again in life.
“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,” she added.
The I Wanna Love You Forever singer also spoke candidly about her childhood traumas which happened when she was just six years old.
“I shared a bed with the daughter of a family friend. It would start with tickling my back and then go into things that were extremely uncomfortable,” Jessica admitted.
“I wanted to tell my parents,” she added. “I was the victim but somehow I felt in the wrong.”
When she did finally tell her parents, their reaction was to not speak about it ever again.
“We never stayed at my parents’ friends’ house again, but we also didn’t talk about what I had said,” she wrote.
Jessica took to Instagram to thank the publication for helping her tell her candid story, writing: “There is so much beauty on the other side of fear and I hope my truth can help. I can’t wait to share #OpenBook with you.”
