In Jessica Simpson's highly anticipated upcoming memoir, Open Book, she reveals a lot of gripping details about herself that fans may have never known otherwise, including her battle with addiction and being sexually abused as a young girl.
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Jessica Simpson Reveals Battle With Addiction: 'I Was Killing Myself With All The Drinking And Pills'
As the release of Jessica Simpson's memoir, "Open Book" approaches, PEOPLE got their hands on an excerpt that reveals some heavy details from her past.
For the first time ever, Jessica opened up about being sexually abused as a young girl and her subsequent battle with addiction because of it.
She began by revealing that initially, instead of writing a memoir, she had the opportunity to write a motivational book.
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A self-help guide to "living your best life".
But at the time, she felt like writing something like that would be disingenuous. So, she didn't go through with it.
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“I didn’t feel comfortable talking about myself in a way that wasn’t honest,” she said.
“I’m a horrible liar," she added.
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So instead, she took an entirely different approach.
She wrote something more authentic that didn't sugarcoat her life — a life that was, at points, far from sugary.
She opened up for the first time about being sexually abused as a girl.
That emotional trauma ultimately resulted in her decision later in life to self medicate.
She eventually developed a dependency on alcohol and stimulants to a point that made her fear that her life could be in danger.
“I was killing myself with all the drinking and pills,” she wrote.
In November 2017, Jessica gave up alcohol and never looked back.
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“Giving up the alcohol was easy,” she recalled. “I was mad at that bottle. At how it allowed me to stay complacent and numb.”
She revealed that the hard part was not giving up alcohol, it was getting help afterward.
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Reliving through her life's traumas in therapy wasn't easy.
“With work, I allowed myself to feel the traumas I’d been through," she said.
The sexual abuse started when she was just six years old. "When I shared a bed with the daughter of a family friend,” she wrote.
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“It would start with tickling my back and then go into things that were extremely uncomfortable.”
“I wanted to tell my parents. I was the victim but somehow I felt in the wrong.”
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When she was 12-years-old, she finally disclosed what happened with her parents, Tina and Joe Simpson, on a road trip.
“Dad kept his eye on the road and said nothing,” Jessica continued.
“We never stayed at my parents’ friends house again but we also didn’t talk about what I had said.”
In the years to follow, her career skyrocketed. Fans had no way of knowing that she was abusing alcohol and drugs.
She explained that rock bottom came in November 2017 after a Halloween party.
“I need to stop. Something’s got to stop. And if it’s the alcohol that’s doing this, and making things worse, then I quit," she told her closest friends.
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“When I finally said I needed help, it was like I was that little girl that found her calling again in life."
“I found direction and that was to walk straight ahead with no fear.”
“Honesty is hard but it’s the most rewarding thing we have,” she continues.
“And getting to the other side of fear is beautiful.”
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“It’s been a long hard deep emotional journey,” she wrote, “one that I’ve come through the other side with pure happiness and fulfillment and acceptance of myself. I’ve used my pain and turned it into something that can be beautiful and hopefully inspiring to people.”
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