Jessica Simpson’s Most Honest Quotes About Body Image, Weight

Credit: Cindy Barrymore/Shutterstock

Jessica Simpson’s Most Honest Quotes About Body Image, Weight

An icon in more ways than one! After dealing with body-shamers throughout her career, Jessica Simpson has become an outspoken supporter of body positivity, encouraging her fans to love themselves unconditionally at any size or time of their lives. The “With You” singer shared exactly how much criticism of her physique affected her psyche in her 2020 memoir, Open Book. After being told to lose 15 pounds as a teenager, Simpson took diet pills for 20 years in an attempt to attain an idealized body. Simpson’s mother, Tina Simpson, revealed more about how much the body-shaming affected Jessica and her sister, Ashlee Simpson, during an appearance on the Today show in April 2021. “It was really hard because they were judged by the world, obviously, and that was probably the most stressful thing is, like, just the negativity of, like, things people would say,” she explained. “I have to be honest, to me, the hardest thing with Jessica has been the weight because the way people judge her, it’s unbelievable. … Body-shaming is a terrible thing, and no girl should have to go through that — or guy. Period. No one.” [jwplayer ZTNVk7rC-zhNYySv2] These days, however, the Dukes of Hazzard alum is focused on healing and being a good role model to her children: Maxwell, Ace and Birdie. “It took a long time, but Jessica has finally hit a healthy point in her life where she stopped caring so much about looking perfect,” a source told Us Weekly in May 2021. “Jessica is not into extreme dieting anymore and caring about what a number on the scale says. She’s solely focused on her overall health.” According to the insider, Jessica “would never want her daughters to experience what she’s suffered mentally” with her body. “She wants to set a great example for her children and be a role model to them,” the source said. “With them getting older, they’re going to go through body changes soon, so she just wants to make sure she can properly educate them on what being healthy really means.” Scroll to see the star’s most honest quotes about body image and weight through the years: [podcast_block]

Credit: Cindy Barrymore/Shutterstock

Jessica Simpson’s Most Honest Quotes About Body Image, Weight

An icon in more ways than one! After dealing with body-shamers throughout her career, Jessica Simpson has become an outspoken supporter of body positivity, encouraging her fans to love themselves unconditionally at any size or time of their lives. The “With You” singer shared exactly how much criticism of her physique affected her psyche in her 2020 memoir, Open Book. After being told to lose 15 pounds as a teenager, Simpson took diet pills for 20 years in an attempt to attain an idealized body. Simpson’s mother, Tina Simpson, revealed more about how much the body-shaming affected Jessica and her sister, Ashlee Simpson, during an appearance on the Today show in April 2021. “It was really hard because they were judged by the world, obviously, and that was probably the most stressful thing is, like, just the negativity of, like, things people would say,” she explained. “I have to be honest, to me, the hardest thing with Jessica has been the weight because the way people judge her, it’s unbelievable. … Body-shaming is a terrible thing, and no girl should have to go through that — or guy. Period. No one.” [jwplayer ZTNVk7rC-zhNYySv2] These days, however, the Dukes of Hazzard alum is focused on healing and being a good role model to her children: Maxwell, Ace and Birdie. “It took a long time, but Jessica has finally hit a healthy point in her life where she stopped caring so much about looking perfect,” a source told Us Weekly in May 2021. “Jessica is not into extreme dieting anymore and caring about what a number on the scale says. She’s solely focused on her overall health.” According to the insider, Jessica “would never want her daughters to experience what she’s suffered mentally” with her body. “She wants to set a great example for her children and be a role model to them,” the source said. “With them getting older, they’re going to go through body changes soon, so she just wants to make sure she can properly educate them on what being healthy really means.” Scroll to see the star’s most honest quotes about body image and weight through the years: [podcast_block]

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Self-Love

"Every day will continue to be a journey,” Jessica said during a March 2010 TV interview. “Every day, we'll find something new out about ourselves that is authentic and is unique, but I really just finally relaxed. I don't care what people have to say about my weight. I really don't, because I think I look great."

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Let Her Live

“It’s unfair,” she told Redbook in 2014 after being scrutinized for her body and “mom jeans” during a chili cook-off in 2009. “What woman wants to be brought down for wearing a pair of jeans?” 

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To Be Honest

“I beat myself about how fat I am before I gave the world a chance to,” the singer wrote in her 2020 memoir, Open Book, after going back and reading her 2009 journal entries. In the old entries, she'd written: “Today my heart breaks because people say I’m fat. … I wear a size 25. … How much do I think about my body on a scale from 1-100 percent of the day? 80 percent.”

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Not Alone

“I’m not a supermodel!” she told USA Today in 2012. “My body is not bouncing back like a supermodel. I’m just your everyday woman who is trying to feel good and be healthy for her daughter, her fiancé and herself. … I feel like everybody can do what I am doing.”

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On Loving Her Baby Bump

"I'm, like, 170 pounds and I wanted to pose nude," the Newlyweds: Nick & Jessica alum told Ryan Seacrest while explaining her decision to strip down for her April 2012 Elle cover, which she shot while pregnant with Maxwell. “It's funny to be at your heaviest and feel the most confident. I just take such pride in being a mom! I just love my body more than ever now."

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For the People

"I've been all kinds of sizes and ... being a mom, I feel like people just can relate to me,” Jessica told Today in March 2015.

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The Only One Who Matters

"Raising Maxwell makes me realize that I don’t want her to see me beat myself up for things like food choices or numbers on a scale. I don’t want her to learn anything like that from me,” she wrote via Parents’ GoodyBlog in October 2013. “Those things don’t determine who we are and instead make us feel terrible about ourselves. I want to teach her to value herself, listen to herself and tune out the world. I want her to know her value, rather than spending her energy fighting negative voices from within. I want to teach her to figure out what is truly right for her rather than worrying about what anyone else thinks."

Credit: Cindy Barrymore/Shutterstock

Attainable Goals

“I just want to feel good and be able to zip my pants up,” Jessica explained during an April 2021 Today show appearance. “If I don’t, I have another size. I have every size.”

The actress also revealed she threw out her scale. “I’ve really tried my hardest to not let that define me,” she added.

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Dealing With the Critics

“I’ve been criticized, and it hurts, but I’ve been every weight and I’ve been proud of it,” the Employee of the Month actress told Extra in September 2022. “I decided, ‘OK, everybody is going to talk about my weight all the time, I might as well make money off of it and turn it into a business of selling clothes and acceptance.'”

She added: “I absolutely feel healthy. I feel like my old self before I had children and all the hormones going wild. I feel younger, actually. I have a lot more energy and yeah, I get to wear all the clothes that are in storage that I saved for Maxwell and Birdie."