While we’re still collecting ourselves from the surprise reveals that Jessica Simpson, 39, has been making left and right leading up to the Feb. 4 release date of her memoir, Open Book, she has dropped yet another. Apparently, the singer and Nick Lachey, 46, had sex one more time after they finalized their divorce in 2006 — at least, according to the account in her new book, which Radar Online has read.
For context, Nick didn’t immediately jump on the divorce papers, according to Jessica. At first, he allegedly refused to sign them and “insisted marriage counseling.” When Jessica wouldn’t budge, that’s when he “begged her to stay,” per Radar Online. “Please don’t leave me. I love you so much,” the former 98 Degrees member told Jessica, according to her recollection.
Jessica didn’t take Nick back, and after the divorce was settled, she “watched him portray himself as a victim” in a 2006 documentary about the making of an album he had released at the time. “He then mentioned that the door was still open for us to get back together. I kept pulling the blanket up over my face to hide because [because] I felt so exposed. It was so disrespectful and [he] dragged me back into his orbit when I was just starting to leave it [the relationship],” Jessica wrote.
Regardless, Jessica felt “responsible” that Nick was “breaking down in front of the world,” even though she knows that’s not the case now. “But back then, it felt like I needed to fix him,” Jessica wrote, and so she later invited her ex-husband to talk at her house. “He rang the bell, and out of reflex I hugged him. I meant it, too. Despite my anger, I missed him,” the singer wrote, and that’s when the surprise moment allegedly happened: “I didn’t know any other way to make it better, so I slept with him.”
For Jessica, the alleged sex was “emotional” but established “no connection,” giving her “confirmation that this man was not my husband anymore.” Jessica could register one feeling, though: “his hate.” She explained, “The whole situation was very dark. I didn’t want the energy in my home. When he walked out the door, I knew I would never see him again.” Indeed, they’d never get back together again. Jessica went on to marry NFL star Eric Johnson, 40, in 2014, and they welcomed three children: daughter Maxwell, 7, son Ace, 6, and daughter Birdie, 10 mos.