The stage in Pennsylvania was actually meant for music. But Jessica Simpson (45) used her concert on Thursday for something else: a confession that delves deep into the dark sides of the pop business. As the entertainment portal "Page Six" reports, the singer described to her audience how her record label pressured her as a teenager to fundamentally change her body - not for health reasons, but to be competitive.
"I really thought I was signed just because of my voice", Simpson told the audience. "And suddenly they said: You have to lose fifteen pounds - even though I weighed 115 pounds at the time." She was just 17 years old at that point.
Britney Spears as the Standard
The reason was simple yet sobering: The label wanted to turn Simpson into a copy of the then-omnipresent Britney Spears (44). "There was Britney Spears, there was Christina Aguilera, we love them, we support them. So I had to follow in their footsteps", the singer explained.
What followed was not an artistic development process, but an uncomfortable optimization assignment. For the second album "Irresistible", the label intensified the requirements once again: Simpson should have visible abs. "That was definitely not what was going to happen", she stated dryly. And added with a self-confident undertone: "I'm just not built that way. I just have a little belly."
Jessica Simpson: "Never Good Enough"
The demands were exhausting for Simpson. "I always felt like a failure because I was never good enough", Simpson said. It wasn't the first time she spoke about these experiences. Already in December, she had struck similar notes at a concert in Connecticut. "Throughout my entire music career, I really only had one goal: to become a pop star. I tried, but I have to say, when you're younger, you just never feel good enough - and it's okay to not feel good enough", she admitted. But this time she became.
Comeback After 15-Year Break
Last year, she released "Nashville Canyon", her first new album in 15 years - inspired by the end of her marriage to Eric Johnson, whom she was married to since 2014 and with whom she has three children: daughters Maxwell (14) and Birdie (7), as well as son Ace (12). Working on the project helped her heal, she said.
