Nick Lachey won’t be grabbing a copy of Jessica Simpson’s Open Book anytime soon.
via People:
The 98 Degrees member, 47, spoke to Andy Cohen on his SiriusXM show Radio Andy and revealed that he has not given his ex-wife’s memoir a read — and that he simply won’t be doing so in the future.
“You’d be shocked to hear that I have not nor will I ever read it,” said Lachey after laughing at Cohen’s question asking if he had read the 2020 memoir.
“Here’s the thing, obviously I knew the book was coming out. I lived the book,” he added. “I know what the truth is so I don’t need to read it or read someone’s version of a story. I know it. I lived it. So no, I never read it.”
Simpson, 41, and Lachey married in 2002 before splitting in 2005 and officially divorcing the following year. They had been dating for nearly three years prior. Their marriage was the focus of reality show Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica, which aired from 2003 to 2005, shortly before their split.
During the interview, Cohen, 53, also mentioned a biopic-like series based on Simpson’s life.
“I’m thrilled where I am in life and that was 20 years ago so it’s honestly the last thing on my mind these days, unless someone brings it up,” Lachey said about the relationship. “I understand why people want to ask but it’s so not my life anymore that it’s not even on my radar.”
“She’s doing her thing, I’m doing mine,” he added. “And that’s the way it should be.” (Lachey is now married to Vanessa Lachey and they share children Camden, 9, Brooklyn, 6, and Phoenix, 4.)
Among some of the things about their relationship in Simpson’s book is a handwritten entry from her “divorce journal.”
“I didn’t want to be married any longer but I was also afraid to be alone with ‘no one to call my own but the night,'” she wrote in her black Mead notebook. “The house is hushed. Everything is still. I sit in solitude. To cry. To feel alone….”
“What a shame to find that which is or who is to blame, because in this world, deceit becomes a crippled hearts cane,” she added, before writing later, “So Nick, u r with another already? Seems that you forgot the love you spoke to me…”
She also wrote in her book that the two slept together one last time before they finalized their divorce.
“I just wanted to know what he thought of me now, because at that point I had no idea,” she wrote in her book. “I watched him portray himself as a victim, casting me as this selfish person.”
Simpson recalled how he came over and that “despite my anger, I missed him.” She explained that the two listened to Lachey’s album and she knew that all of the songs were about her.
“I was numb, just blank. How do you react when you find out you have apparently hurt someone so deeply that they feel entitled to such actions? I felt manipulated into some revenge fantasy, but I had put myself in this situation,” Simpson wrote. “I didn’t know any other way to make it better, so I slept with him.”
“He didn’t stay the night. I was relieved because I could feel his hate. The whole situation was very dark,” she later wrote. “When he walked out the door, I knew I would never see him again.”
After the book first dropped in early 2020, Lachey spoke to Today about it, saying he didn’t “know what she said or what she revealed there.”
“I’m certainly happy for her and her life, I know she is happy for us,” he said at the time. “There’s definitely a mutual respect there, so that’s, you know — obviously it was a long time ago; we’ve all moved on.”
And, in an interview with PEOPLE before the book dropped, the “With You” singer called Lachey her “first love.”
“We were young and pioneering our way through reality television, always mic’d and always on,” she said then. “We worked and we were great at it but when it came time to being alone, we weren’t great at it anymore.”
Simpson is married to Eric Johnson and shares daughters Maxwell Drew, 9, and Birdie Mae, 2, and 8-year-old son Ace Knute with him.
The thing is — it’s not about truth, it’s about understanding someone else’s perspective. Watch Nick’s interview below.
