Just this week Demi Lovato said an article referring to her as “morbidly obese” nearly knocked her right off the wagon and back into doing drugs after she got out of rehab.
Now we have yet another example of how impactful words can be — and why you should be especially careful when talking about someone’s appearance…
Jessica Simpson truly told ALL in her tell-all Open Book, but she still has more to share. The paperback edition of the memoir hit bookstores this week, and in it she’s included some of the most intimate looks into her life yet — in the form of handwritten entries from her personal diaries!
Related: The Moment Jessica Told Her Daughter About Her Childhood Sexual Abuse
One particularly heartbreaking entry was from what she calls “the ‘Mom Jeans’ era.” After a concert in January 2009, several media outlets couldn’t help but discuss her body. And not just blogs — we’re talking about news sources.
Fox News went with the headline “Jessica Simpson Shocks Fans With Noticeably Fuller Figure.” The Boston Herald went so far as to call her “porky.” (For real. The posts have since been deleted, but if you search from around that time you can find other sites referencing them.)
Now we know exactly how that made Jessica feel — because she included that page from her journal! She wrote:
“Today my heart breaks because people say I’m fat.”
So sad! Even in the midst of her pain, Jessica was introspective and looking to learn from the moment. She wrote:
“Why does the cruel opinion of this world get to me? Has it become about how many people read something and are encouraged to believe it?”
Most innerestingly, in her 2009 journal she then looked back ANOTHER 10 years, writing about what she was saying in 1999 — when she was still a teenager! She continued:
“Last week I read back to my journals from 1999 and I beat myself up about how fat I [was] before I even gave the world a chance to.”
1999?!? I Wanna Love You Forever era Jessica Simpson hated how she looked? How is that possible!?
Awww… How awful that she’s been made to feel this way so long! About that snapshot in her history, the Jessica from 2021 wrote:
“I hate that I was treated as an object to be tossed around like a rag doll, but I smile to see me talking to myself back and forth across all these years.”
Thankfully the 40-year-old — who has given birth to three children and is in possibly the best shape of her life — has gotten to a place where she isn’t letting anyone else determine her self-worth.
Speaking about the moment of clarity — and the Simpception of it all — to People upon the paperback’s release, Jessica said:
“I don’t think people always realized that there was a human being, a beating heart and working eyes with actual feelings behind those headlines and that words can hurt and stay with you for a lifetime.”
Maybe not a lifetime… maybe, say, 22 years? She lamented:
“I spent so many years beating myself up for an unrealistic body standard that made me feel like a failure all of the time. I am still a work in progress when it comes to self-criticism but now I have the tools to quiet those voices in my head when they speak up.”
What has she come up with in all the time ruminating on the subject?
“I believe in my heart that a healthy body and a sound mind-body connection are what’s truly important and help me accept imperfections as beauty.”
It’s definitely a much healthier way to look at it! We hope she also realizes how many folks don’t even believe Jessica has any imperfections. A great many fans have only ever believed she was perfect — mom jeans and all.
[Image via Aruna Gilbert/WENN/Instar.]
The post How Jessica Simpson REALLY Felt About Being Body Shamed For Her 'Mom Jeans' In 2009! appeared first on Perez Hilton.