Jessica Simpson: Childhood sex abuse led to substance, alcohol addiction

Singer and fashion entrepreneur Jessica Simpson says in her new memoir that childhood sexual abuse led her to pills and alcohol until she became sober in late 2017.

In a People magazine excerpt Wednesday from her upcoming "Open Book," being published Feb. 4, Simpson, 39, writes how at age 6, "I shared a bed with the daughter of a family friend" whose inappropriate touching "would start with tickling my back and then go into things that were extremely uncomfortable."

"I wanted to tell my parents," Simpson writes. "I was the victim but somehow I felt in the wrong." When she finally did tell Tina and Joe Simpson during a car trip when she was 12, her mother slapped her father on the arm and loudly admonished him, "I told you something was happening."

"Dad kept his eye on the road and said nothing," Simpson writes. "We never stayed at my parents' friends house again but we also didn't talk about what I had said."

After she became a music star with hits such as 1999's "I Wanna Love You Forever," that childhood trauma, combined with career pressure, prompted her to seek solace in stimulants and alcohol. "I was killing myself with all the drinking and pills," Simpson writes. Then at a Halloween party in 2017 she told close friends, "I need to stop. Something's got to stop. And if it's the alcohol that's doing this, and making things worse, then I quit." That November, Simpson writes, she became sober with the help of loved ones, doctors and therapy.

"Giving up the alcohol was easy," she writes. "I was mad at that bottle. At how it allowed me to stay complacent and numb."

Simpson founded the hugely successful Jessica Simpson Collection apparel line in the early aughts, and married former NFL tight end Eric Johnson, 40, in 2014. The couple has daughters Maxwell, 7, and Birdie, 10 months, and son Ace, 6.

"Thank you @people for helping me share my story," Simpson posted on social media Wednesday. "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."