Jessica Simpson is recalling the intense pressure she felt to lose weight early in her career.
The 45-year-old singer had a concert in Pennsylvania on Thursday (June 11) and got vulnerable with the crowd as she reflected on her career.
“It feels good to be back on stage in my 40s. I missed all of my 30s, so this really to me, feels like I’m me again. I feel like walking onstage is almost more comfortable than my living room at home, and it’s such a beautiful feeling,” she said, according to footage obtained by Us Weekly.
The Dukes of Hazzard star recalled how when she was first starting out as a singer and trying to be a pop star, she was always compared to Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera.
“I had to follow in their footsteps. I really thought I was signed just because of my voice, then it was like, ‘OK, you need to lose 15 pounds,” Jessica shared, adding that she was just 115 pounds as a teenager.
“To tell a 17-year-old that is a lot,” she continued. “The second record, I [was told] needed to have a six-pack, which was definitely not going to happen. I’m just not built that way, you know? There were just all these things that I had to be to be ‘Jessica Simpson’ or the version of Jessica Simpson they believed I should be to be successful. I always felt like a failure, like, I was never good enough.”
She’s come a long way since those days on her journey of compassion and self-love.
Back in October 2025, during a visit to The Jennifer Hudson Show, Jessica talked about her music comeback and said she went through an through an “incredible journey of trying to discover self love and also compassion, and just trying to remain vulnerable, but find strength through it,” for her first new collection of music since 2008 titled Nashville Canyon: Part 1.
Earlier this month, at a different concert, Jessica got very vulnerable about her past drinking problem.
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