Jessica Ann Simpson (born July 10, 1980) is an American pop singer who rose to
fame during the late 1990s. She has starred with her husband Nick Lachey
(pronounced la-SHAY) in the MTV reality show Newlyweds, released her own
line of beauty products called Dessert, and has also started a career as
an actress.
Early life and career.
Simpson was born in Abilene, Texas and raised in Richardson, a suburb
of Dallas. She is the daughter of Joe (a Baptist youth minister)
and Tina Simpson and has a younger sister, Ashlee, who launched her
own music career in mid-2004. Jessica started singing at the age
of twelve as a part of her Baptist church choir. At the same age,
she made an unsuccessful application for The New Mickey Mouse Club,
which starred fellow singers Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears and
Justin Timberlake, among other future stars.
Jessica attended J.J. Pearce High School in Richardson, Texas. Simpson
was discovered singing at a church camp by a head of a small contemporary
Christian record label and recorded an album over the next three years,
but the label went out of business before the album could be released.
She dropped out her senior year in order to tour and promote her demo
album, which was funded by her grandmother, Joyce (thus the reason
for the name Rejoyce: The Christmas Album); she later earned her GED.
During this time, she toured with the Christian Youth Conference circuit
performing with Kirk Franklin, God's Property and CeCe Winans. She
and her father sold copies of the album after her performances.
Tommy Mottola of Columbia Records obtained a copy of the album and,
thinking she had potential as a pop singer, signed her as such. Jessica
eliminated the Christian influences from her appearance and music.
On November 23, 1999, Simpson released her debut pop album Sweet Kisses,
reaching a peak of #25 on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart and also making
the top 40 of the UK charts. The album proved to be a success, selling
2 million copies in the U.S. Her first single, the platinum-selling "I
Wanna Love You Forever", reached the top 5 of the U.S. Billboard
Hot 100 singles chart and the top 10 in Canada and the UK in late 1999.
Her second single, a duet with then-boyfriend, now-husband Nick Lachey
of 98 Degrees, "Where You Are", was a modest radio hit. The
last single off the album, the John Mellencamp-sampled "I Think
I'm in Love With You", was a top 40 hit in the U.S. and a top
20 hit in Canada and the UK. In 2000, Simpson won two Teen Choice Awards
for Choice Breakout Artist and Love Song of the Year ("Where You
Are" featuring Nick Lachey).
Simpson's sophomore effort Irresistible, released on June 5, 2001,
reached the top 10 of the Billboard 200 and top 20 of the Canadian
album charts. Despite this improvement, the album's sales were less
than satisfactory; to date, it has only managed to be certified gold
in the U.S. for selling over 500,000 copies. The title track, which
was featured as the lead single, went top 20 in the U.S., Canada and
the UK, as well as top 40 in Australia and Switzerland. A follow-up
single entitled "A Little Bit" was also released, but failed
to achieve much success apart from going top 20 in Portugal. Compared
to her competition in pop princesses and ex-Mouseketeers Aguilera and
Spears, Simpson seemed to be lagging behind in terms of chart success
and sales.
Between her second and third albums, Simpson released a collection
of remixes entitled This Is The Remix on July 2, 2002. However, the
collection failed to even chart on the Billboard 200, suffering from
lack of promotion.
On October 26, 2002, Simpson wed Nick Lachey.
During the Summer of 2003, Simpson and husband Lachey's reality show
Newlyweds began airing on MTV. Though Simpson was moderately famous
before the series began, the show is considered responsible for transforming
her into a true star.
Throughout the run of three seasons, she often appeared as a stereotype
of a dumb blonde, notably when she asked whether the Chicken of the
Sea tuna she was eating was chicken or fish, and when she thought that
buffalo wings were made from actual buffalo. Her apparent stupidity
made the show a huge hit, making the average rating for each episode
about 1.4 million viewers. When introduced to Interior Secretary Gale
Norton, Simpson responded: "You've done a nice job decorating
the White House".
Banking on the success of her new popularity, she appeared on a variety
show with Lachey on the ABC called the Nick and Jessica Variety Hour
on April 11, 2004. A pilot for a sitcom on ABC was also planned, but
was rejected by network executives in May 2004. During the Summer of
2004, Simpson won three Teen Choice Awards for Choice Female Fashion
Icon, Choice Hottie Female and Choice Female Reality/Variety TV Star,
further proving that Newlyweds had greatly strengthened her overall
popularity. In 2005, the series won a People's Choice Award for Favorite
Reality Show. A couple of months later, the show finally wrapped.
Coinciding with Newlyweds, her third album, In This Skin, was released
on August 19, 2003. On a whole, the record featured a much more mature
sound compared to her earlier releases. Though the album initially
was not a huge success, it got its chance to rebound on the charts
when a special collector's edition was released on March 2, 2004. This
helped Skin to reach a peak of #2 on the Billboard 200 and the top
40 of the UK charts, due largely in part to the success of Newlyweds.
The album eventually proved to be her most successful, selling 3 million
copies in the U.S. and allowing her teetering music career a second
chance. The lead single off the album was a cover of Diane Warren's "Sweetest
Sin" ; the song was not very successful, however, and caused a
backlash in sales of Skin early on. The follow-up single, the gold-selling "With
You", enjoyed much more success, and became her biggest hit since "I
Wanna Love You Forever". The song went top 10 in the UK and top
20 in the U.S. and Australia, as well as on world adult charts. The
third single, a cover of Berlin's "Take My Breath Away", also went top 20 in the U.S. A cover version of Robbie Williams' "Angels" was
released as the fourth and final single.
After the success of Newlyweds, many doors opened for Simpson to branch
out in her career. One way was by creating her own line of beauty products
called Dessert. The show's success also gave Simpson the opportunity
to release an album of Christmas songs; the end product, Rejoyce: The
Christmas Album, appeared on November 23, 2004. For a collection of holiday
covers, the album proved successful; it reached the top 20 of the Billboard
200 and was certified gold in 2005. It includes a duet with her sister
Ashlee on the song "Little Drummer Boy". Jessica and Ashlee
also performed the song together on Nick & Jessica's Family Christmas,
which aired on the ABC on December 1, 2004.
More recently, Simpson has made her way into the world of acting;
her film debut as Daisy Duke in The Dukes of Hazzard hit theaters in
August 2005. The film debuted at number one at the box office, grossing
more than thirty million dollars. The movie has grossed over forty
million dollars so far. One of the tracks off the soundtrack for the
movie, "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'", is sung by none
other than Simpson and was used as a single to promote the film. The
song debuted at #33 on the Hot 100; the biggest debut of Simpson's
career. The single became a huge seller regarding digital downloads
through programs such as iTunes, which in turn aided it in becoming
a chart success; after only two weeks on the chart, it peaked at #14,
but dropped quickly. The video for the song earned itself quite a bit
of media attention for being particularly more raunchy than any of
Simpson's previous videos, as it included her in a revealing ensemble
and ended with her washing a car in a bikini. This could be accounted
to the fact that she is playing the role of Daisy Duke in the video,
but she has still been criticized by a number of Christian groups,
and her use of sexuality to sell has led her to be compared to Willa
Ford and Christina Aguilera. The single charted well overseas also,
reaching #4 in the UK and #7 in Australia.
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