In her 2020 memoir, Open Book, Jessica Simpson discussed her “emotional affair” with Jackass star Johnny Knoxville when they were both married to other people and her on again-off again relationship with John Mayer, who she claimed would “[photograph] me constantly, to the point that I worried he was keeping souvenirs before dumping me again.” One anecdote that it didn’t make it into the book was the time an “A-list childhood crush” invited the singer and actress on a romantic getaway, which Simpson detailed in the new Amazon Original Story, “Movie Star: They Always Say They’re Single.”
Simpson met the Movie Star, who she grew up thinking was “hot,” at the 2001 MTV Movie Awards. They saw each other again at Spots Club/LA, where he asked her to hang out again, and she requested for him to be in her music video. They exchanged phone numbers, but “I didn’t call the Movie Star,” she wrote. “He sent word to me through my security guard that he was going to be too busy filming some blockbuster to do my music video. I got engaged to Nick [Lachey] the following February and married that October. Then we got ridiculously famous because of a reality show. I don’t regret any of it, especially the marriage. But, as you probably know, we got divorced.”
Years later, Simpson and the Movie Star reconnected (and kissed for the first time) on the night he had to “appear at an award show”… with his girlfriend. “I saw a photo of Movie Star on a red carpet with her,” she wrote. “I was never ever in a million years going to be the other woman.” He claimed the relationship was “completely over,” and that they were only appearing in public together because otherwise “it’s a story we have to deal with,” he said. They began to see each other more often. Movie Star’s “spiritual advisor” told him that “having sex brings you closer to God,” but Simpson wasn’t ready.
The duo ended up enjoying a whirlwind romance and would go to events together, with Jessica even visiting the man on one of his movie sets. However, she started to feel uncomfortable with the relationship. She says: “Yes, there was something sexy and enticing about all this, but there was also something demeaning about it. I felt like a call girl.” Jessica adds that she felt as though he was trying to “hide” her from his partner, and she admits that her behavior is not something that she was “proud of.”
Maybe Simpson can tell her biggest fan Jennifer Lawrence who it is.
If you put together all the clues, as Pajiba did, there’s a top suspect for who Movie Star is. Let’s just say that Simpson’s fling with him was more pain than gain.
