Jessica Simpson opened up about a lot of things in her life in her memoir, Open Book, which she released earlier this year – including revealing she suffered sexual abuse as a child.
“[It happened] when I shared a bed with the daughter of a family friend. It would start with tickling my back and then go into things that were extremely uncomfortable…”she wrote in her book. “I lay between them, fiercely protecting my sister from this monster. I didn’t want her to feel as disgusting as I felt… I never let her near Ashlee, but I also never screamed or told her to stop.”
In a recent interview on Katherine Schwarzenegger’s podcast, The Gift of Forgiveness, Jessica revealed that she actually “confronted” her abuser several years ago – and forgave her.
“I would say about eight years ago I confronted her,” she told Katherine. “I went to her and I just said, ‘I know you know what was going on and I know that you were being abused,’ ’cause she was being abused by an older guy. And basically, and he was always there at the house as well — he never touched me, but he would abuse her and then she would come to me and do the stuff to me — and so in so many ways I felt bad for her and I was allowing the abuse to happen.”
“I told her in the moment, ‘I know that you have a lot to deal with,’ and I told her that she should probably talk to someone and find a way to understand those moments and to forgive those moments and to heal from those moments,” she continued. “‘I just want you to know that I forgive you and I don’t really care to be around you that much ever again, but I do want you to know that I know what happened between us and I’m not gonna live in denial about it.'”
Jessica also shared her abuser’s reaction after their talk, recalling, “She really didn’t say much. We haven’t spoken really since.”
As for what prompted her to confront her unnamed abuser, she said she came to the decision when she was doing “a lot of soul searching” following her split with ex-husband Nick Lachey in 2006.
“I was just in that place where I was celibate at the time and I was on this journey to explore myself and I knew that I couldn’t move forward without letting her know that I wasn’t going to just leave it unsaid,” she said. “I left it unsaid for far too long. I knew that if I was honest with her, it would clear my conscience.”
“I even sent her the book and I told her that I hope that it brings healing,” she added, referring to her memoir.
