Jessica Simpson[1]’s last on-air interview went about as smoothly as her sister Ashlee’s infamous “Saturday Night Live” lip-synch debacle[2].
The singer generated all the wrong kind of buzz[3] with her appearance on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” back in 2017, when she elicited a strong side-eye from the host after fumbling over painfully off-topic stories about her daughter’s birthday party, the length of her marriage and, yes, even her own uterus.
The “Newlyweds” alum has since opened up about her yearslong addiction battle[4] in her upcoming memoir “Open Book,” revealing that she used to “self-medicate with alcohol and stimulants” during periods of stress.
And, as for that interview, Simpson confessed in a decidedly more polished TV appearance this week that she was indeed inebriated as she sat across from DeGeneres.
“I can’t even watch the interview,″ she told “Today” host Hoda Kotb[5] on Wednesday. “It was a weak moment for me, and I wasn’t in the right place. I had started a spiral, and I couldn’t catch up with myself and that was with alcohol.”
In a recent New York Times interview[6], Simpson said she “apologizes to Ms. DeGeneres and to the viewers” in the book for “drinking before going on-air.”
DeGeneres hasn’t said anything about Simpson’s comments.
Simpson’s appearance on the show led her closest friends and family to stage an intervention, according to the Times. But Simpson wouldn’t quit drinking until months later, after a particularly disastrous Halloween.
She recalled being so drunk that she couldn’t even get her kids dressed to go trick or treating. She now has three children ― Maxwell, 7; Ace, 6; and Birdie, 10 months.
“I honestly couldn’t even tell you who got them ready,″ Simpson told “Today.”