Jessica Simpson says John Mayer 'made it easy for her to walk away' after calling her 'sexual napalm'
Singer Jessica Simpson has opened up about her tumultuous past in an upcoming candid memoir called 'Open Book', which will be released on February 4. In the memoir, the singer talks about many deeply personal and intimate aspects of her life, like her struggles with alcohol addiction, her sexual abuse as a six-year-old girl and all the lessons she learned from her previous relationships, including her romance with musician John Mayer, who Jessica dated after divorcing her husband Nick Lachey, the singer of the boy band 98 Degrees.
In excerpts from the book recently published in 'People' magazine, Jessica dishes the details about her checkered past with the celebrated guitarist John Mayer, whom she initially met at a Grammy party thrown by the legendary music mogul Clive Davis. Mayer apparently made the first move by approaching Jessica and telling her how much he admired her song 'With You', and the two hit it off after that. The 'Dukes of Hazzard' star reveals that she was flattered when he began to write to her after that encounter.
The notes from Mayer gradually became more intimate over time, and after Simpson divorced her husband, Nick Lachey, in late 2005, she started getting back into the dating game. But as Jessica details in her book, Mayer then gave her an ultimatum: “He wanted to have all of me or nothing.”
“He’d walk into a room and pick up his guitar and you’d swoon,” said the 39-year-old singer. “I didn’t really know the man behind the guitar. And that was my mission.” The pair secretly dated for several months, and Jessica admits she was drawn in by Mayer's intensity. “Again and again, he told me he was obsessed with me, sexually and emotionally,” she wrote of the 'Your Body Is A Wonderland' singer.
The couple's love blossomed as they made their relationship public, but Jessica was always plagued by anxiety and self-doubts regarding their relationship. “I constantly worried that I wasn’t smart enough for him,” she revealed. “He was so clever and treated conversation like a friendly competition that he had to win.”
Simpson eventually got so insecure about disappointing Mayer that she would even have a friend spellcheck her text messages to him. And when she felt unsure, she said, “My anxiety would spike and I would pour another drink. It was the start of me relying on alcohol to mask my nerves.”
“He loved me in the way that he could and I loved that love for a very long time,” wrote Jessica about their on-again, off-again relationship. “Too long. And I went back and forth with it for a long time. But it did control me.”
She stopped talking to Mayer once and for all, however, after the guitarist called her “sexual napalm” in an interview with Playboy magazine in 2010. “He thought that was what I wanted to be called,” said a surprised Jessica. “I was floored and embarrassed that my grandmother was actually gonna read that.” She made her stance on the matter clear, saying, “A woman and how they are in bed is not something that is ever talked about.” added Simpson. “It was shocking.”
She had to come to terms with the fact that Mayer had broken her trust. “He was the most loyal person on the planet and when I read that he wasn’t, that was it for me,” said Jessica. “I erased his number. He made it easy for me to walk away.”
Although the one-time power couple is no longer in touch, the singer said, “I know that he’s publicly apologized and I don’t want to take that away from him.” More details are revealed in Jessica's 'Open Book'. If you buy the audiobook version, you will also be treated to six new songs by Jessica Simpson.