Jessica Simpson Gets Candid About Nick Lachey Divorce: ‘We Both Were At Fault In A Lot Of Things’

Jessica Simpson is getting very candid about her 2006 divorce from Nick Lachey. The singer, actress, and fashion mogul opened up about their four-year marriage in a new interview this week. She explained what went wrong in the relationship and why they were both to blame for their highly publicized breakup.

Jessica spoke openly about the now infamous split to Entertainment Tonight. She confessed that she genuinely thought she and the former 98 Degrees singer were going to be married forever when they tied the knot 18 years ago, when she was only 22-years-old.

“With Nick, I was madly in love. I mean, I loved everything about the guy and I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. I was 22-years-old when we got married but I thought I knew my future and I thought he was gonna be in it forever,” she told the outlet.

The “I Wanna Love You Forever” singer also told the site that her dad, Joe Simpson, didn’t approve of her marrying so young, though she was determined to prove him wrong and make their marriage work.

However, the couple soon found cracks starting to form in their seemingly picture-perfect relationship only a few years after their lavish 2002 wedding.

Jessica explained that the intense spotlight and public scrutiny that came from their reality show, the MTV series Newlyweds: Nick & Jessica that ran for three seasons between 2003 and 2005, as well as their eight-year age gap contributed heavily to their divorce.

“[Nick] was already so grown up when I wasn’t,” she explained, adding that she felt there was some “tension” and “a lot less support” in their marriage as her fame started to grow, and she began receiving more attention and job offers.

She explained that she began getting endorsement deals, magazine covers, and other projects that didn’t always involve her former husband, as she implied that Nick wasn’t such a fan of her solo fame.

“We really were kind of spinning and trying to tolerate each other towards the end because we were so used to being miced up or onstage,” she continued, adding that the world “put us as a trophy couple that we actually weren’t” because of how happy they were together at the start of their romance.

The star told the site that in the end she and Nick “grew apart in so many ways,” which led to their eventual split.

“We both were at fault in a lot of things,” she added, but noted that there’s now no bad blood between herself and her ex-husband 14 years after they went their separate ways.

“I’m happy for him now. He’s married with three beautiful children and… that was his purpose, and he took heartbreak and made it into something beautiful and that’s what I did as well. But you know, it took me longer to get there.”

Nick is now happily married to actress and TV host Vanessa Lachey, his wife of almost nine years, and the couple share three children together, 7-year-old Camden, 5-year-old Brooklyn, and 3-year-old Phoenix. As The Inquisitr previously reported, the couple recently had a pretty surprised response after a journalist asked them about a gift they supposedly sent Jessica a few years ago to celebrate the birth of her baby.

Jessica married her second husband, football player Eric Johnson, in 2014, and the couple also have three children, 7-year-old Maxwell, 6-year-old Ace, and 10-month-old Birdie.

Jessica made her most recent confessions about her ex while promoting her extremely candid new book, titled Open Book. Despite the star speaking extensively about her former very high-profile marriage and personal struggles in the book and in a number of recent interviews, Nick recently admitted that he hasn’t yet read a single word of her release.