JESSICA SIMPSON SONGS OF MY LIFE

THE STAR REVEALS HOW REVISITING HER NASHVILLE ROOTS IS HELPING HER RECLAIM HER VOICE- AND MEND A BROKEN HEART

- By LIZ MCNEIL

From the moment Jessica Simpson arrived in Nashville in 2023 to make new music, she was “unstoppable,” she says. “I’d wake up in the morning and write down all this poetry and then bring that to the songwriting sessions.” Her second day there, she wrote a song that she calls her personal anthem, “Bread-crumbs,” and the lyrics “Remember who you are. Forget who they told you to be.” For Simpson, 44, who has spent breaking free from the pressures she faced when she catapulted to fame more than two decades ago, becoming a pop phenomenon, a reality TV star and, she says, a “show pony,” Simpson adds, “I was told who I was as an artist, as a singer, what words I should be singing and exactly how. Note for note. Riff for riff.”

Not anymore. Simpson’s new EP NashvilleCanyon: Part 1—a five-song collection of soulful, rockabilly-tinged tunes, 15 years after her last album—comes straight from the heart, albeit an aching one. “In the middle of making the record, my heart was completely broken,” says Simpson, who in January announced her separation from her second husband, former NFL pro Eric Johnson, 45, after 10 years of marriage; the pair share three children, Maxwell, 12, Ace, 11, and Birdie, 5. “I have definitely gone through the darkest time,” she says of their split. “I’ve grown up so much. I can handle so much. I am strong. Maybe I’m just meant to love a lot of people in my life. I don’t know why my heart gets tossed around, but I’m one of the lucky ones. At least I have my children, and I still have Eric. He’s still very much a part of my life and will always be.”

Hank Williams The legend's "I Saw the Light" is a favorite of her daughter Maxwell's.