Jessica Simpson Says It Was ‘Easy’ to End Her Relationship with John Mayer After He Said This
Jessica Simpson is reflecting on her relationship with John Mayer — and opening up about why things ended between the pair.
In her candid new memoir Open Book, Simpson talks about how she met the “Your Body Is a Wonderland” singer, their intense relationship, and what he said that finally caused her to end things for good.
Jessica Simpson says John Mayer was ‘obsessed’ with her
In excerpts of her book (due out Feb. 4) published in People, the 39-year-old recalls how she met Mayer, now 42, at a party in 2005 shortly before her marriage to Nick Lachey ended. The two began writing to each other, and after her divorce, they started dating. While the Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica star was initially seeing other people, he made it clear “he wanted to have all of me or nothing,” Simpson writes.
The relationship was intense, Simpson explained in an interview with the magazine, noting that she’d “swoon” when Mayer walked into a room and picked up a guitar. Mayer appeared equally taken with her.
“Again and again, he told me he was obsessed with me, sexually and emotionally,” the “I Wanna Love You Forever” singer says in her book.
Simpson says Mayer made her feel insecure
Simpson and Mayer dated of and on for years. But she says she never got comfortable with some aspects of their relationship.
“I constantly worried that I wasn’t smart enough for him,” she writes. “He was so clever and treated conversation like a friendly competition that he had to win.”
Simpson says she turned to alcohol to cope with the anxiety she experienced when dating the Grammy-winning singer-songwriter. “It was the start of me relying on alcohol to mask my nerves,” she recalls. (Simpson got sober in 2017.)
The final straw
Though the relationship wasn’t always a happy one, Simpson found it hard to cut ties with Mayer completely.
“He loved me in the way that he could and I loved that love for a very long time,” she told People. “Too long. And I went back and forth with it for a long time. But it did control me.”
It wasn’t until 2010 that Simpson finally stopped communicating Mayer. The final straw was a controversial interview he gave to Playboy, where he discussed their relationship in a way that caused her jaw to drop.
“That girl, for me, is a drug. And drugs aren’t good for you if you do lots of them. Yeah, that girl is like crack cocaine to me,” Mayer said. “Sexually it was crazy. That’s all I’ll say. It was like napalm, sexual napalm.”
Simpson couldn’t believe the man she’d trusted would say such things about her.
“He thought that was what I wanted to be called,” she told People. “I was floored and embarrassed that my grandmother was actually gonna read that.”
Mayer later apologized for his comments. But Simpson was done.
“He was the most loyal person on the planet and when I read that he wasn’t, that was it for me,” she said. “I erased his number. He made it easy for me to walk away.”
