Candid with her kids. Jessica Simpson has been open with her eldest children about her history of addiction.
“It’s a conversation I’ve already had with them .. because I knew that kids at school would talk about it,” the actress, 39, said on Buzzfeed News’ AM to DM of Maxwell, 7, and Ace, 6, on Thursday, February 6. “I knew that some headlines would be correct, some would not be correct, and it’s out of my hands. That’s why it’s so amazing to have my own written words because it’s my story, it’s my truth and nobody else can tell me how my heart feels.”
The Open Book author went on to say, “With my children, they know Mommy doesn’t drink wine because it makes her too silly. But for me, alcohol never made me mean. People didn’t know that I had a problem — they knew that towards the end it was getting to be too much, that I was not being myself and I wasn’t present in a room. … So when I explained it to my kids they really understood that Mommy is just living her best life!”
The Texas native, who also shares Birdie, 10 months, with her husband, Eric Johnson, “didn’t recognize” herself amid her struggles with substance abuse, she told Hoda Kotb last month.
“I had started a spiral and I couldn’t catch up with myself … and that was with alcohol,” Simpson revealed on the Today show in January. “Every day I would say it, ‘I’ll stop soon. I’ll cut back.’ … I always had a glitter cup. It was always filled to the rim with alcohol. I just realized that I had to surrender. It was time. I had to give it up and I was ready. I’m not going to miss another day. I’m not going to miss another Halloween. I’m not going to miss another Christmas. I’m going to be present.”
The “With You” singer decided to see a therapist and stop drinking in October 2017 after she was too drunk to take Maxwell and Ace trick-or-treating.
“Eric gave up drinking the second I did,” Simpson wrote of her husband of five years, 40, in her memoir. “He said, ‘I’ll do it with you, babe.’ It was like no biggie and he hasn’t gone back or looked back. It’s just the way he is. He’s a very selfless and loving person who is the most incredible father on the planet.”
