Singing sensation Jessica Simpson has amassed an estimated $200 million fortune thanks to her lucrative music career—yet she has now revealed that her lifestyle was not always so lavish.
The 45-year-old mother of three opened up about her humble childhood while discussing her fashion brand in a new interview with Business of Fashion, explaining how her affordable clothing and fragrance products were inspired by her thrifty upbringing.
Simpson, who was born and raised in Texas, explained that her father, Joe, who worked as a preacher before going on to manage his two daughters’ singing careers, earned just $30,000 a year when she was a child—forcing the family to live on a very strict budget.
“I’m a preacher’s daughter. My dad made $30,000 a year. I know what it’s like to go to discount stores and really search for something great,” she explained, adding that her focus was on making “great things” for people who can’t afford high-end designer clothing.
The songstress—who split from husband Eric Johnson in January—conceded that she would not be in a position to run her own company had she not achieved a vast fortune from her “celebrity” career, admitting: “The reality is, I would not have a business if I’d gotten everything I wanted as a celebrity.”
Still, Simpson knows better than most what it’s like to live on a tight budget, having spent much of her childhood living in a small house in Abilene, TX, with her dad, her homemaker mother, Tina, and her younger sister, Ashlee, who also went on to become a singer.
The family moved around regularly as a result of Joe’s job—and even spent a short amount of time living in Ohio when Simpson was young—however, their lives transformed almost overnight when the pop star signed her first record deal at the tender age of 17.
Having earned a reputation in the local community as a talented performer after regularly singing at her father’s church, she caught the attention of record producer Tommy Mottola in 1997, who immediately inked a deal for her to join Columbia Records.
At this point, Simpson was moved to Florida, where she began working on her debut album, before later moving to Los Angeles with her first husband, Nick Lachey, whom she wed in 2002.
The couple shot to fame while starring in their own MTV reality series, “Newlyweds,” which documented their life as husband and wife inside their Calabasas mansion, which they purchased for $1.7 million in 2002.
Although she and Lachey divorced in 2006 after just four years of marriage, Simpson would go on to call Los Angeles home for almost two decades—even after wedding Johnson in 2014.
However, Simpson recently began splitting her family’s time between Los Angeles and Nashville, TN, having initially moved there temporarily in order to hunker down and write her emotional memoir, “Open Book,” which was released in 2020.
That experience, she later revealed, made her realize how much more comfortable she felt in the southern state than in California, explaining in a February interview with her sister for The Cut that she initially felt guilty about taking time away from her family in order to pen the candid tome.
“As mothers, we’re people pleasers. We want to make sure everybody’s happy, nobody’s crying,” she said. “We come last here in L.A. I needed to go somewhere where I was first. Not that I didn’t think of my children.”
The former reality star revealed that she and Johnson continued co-parenting their three children—Maxwell, 12, Ace, 11, and Birdie, 5—while she was living in a rental property in Tennessee, explaining that the kids spent time with her in that home, as well as in the family’s mansion in Hidden Hills, where their father was residing.
Simpson and Johnson’s marital dwelling is currently on the market for $17.9 million, having been relisted just days before the former couple announced they were splitting.
Speaking to her sibling from inside the home, Simpson explained that she doesn’t know whether she will relocate to Nashville full-time after selling the property, but said she is confident in her decision to leave Los Angeles once and for all.
“I feel like I’ve been home too long. My L.A. house is on the market. I don’t know where I’m going next, but it’s time to go,” she said.
Simpson purchased the home in 2013, one year before she tied the knot with Johnson in an intimate ceremony in Montecito, CA.
She paid $11.5 million for the home—which she bought from rock ‘n’ roll legend Ozzy Osbourne and his wife, Sharon.
Although she and Johnson have split, Simpson was full of praise for her estranged spouse, expressing her gratitude toward him for allowing her to have the freedom to move to Nashville in order to write her album.
“It is a gift. Eric supported that gift. My kids supported that gift,” she said of the time she spent in Tennessee.
Speaking of her decision to relocate to Nashville, Simpson explained that it was prompted by a realization she had while celebrating her daughter Maxwell’s 11th birthday in the city, explaining that it was that moment that made her “see the light.”
“I had to be in Nashville. I started looking at real estate that day,” she recalled.
In addition to the emotional space that Nashville afforded her, there was also one other very exciting upside to living in the Tennessee city: no paparazzi.
“Another great thing about Nashville is there’s no paparazzi. I literally was doing cartwheels down the Walmart aisles,” she joked.
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