Jessica Simpson: Encyclopedia II - Jessica Simpson - Biography

Jessica Simpson - Biography

Jessica Simpson - Early life and beginning

Simpson was born in Abilene, Texas and raised in Richardson, a suburb of Dallas, Texas. She is the daughter of Joe Truett Simpson (a former Baptist youth minister) and Tina Ann Drew (a former Sunday School teacher). She has a younger sister, Ashlee, who launched her own music career in mid-2004. Jessica started singing at the age of twelve as a part of her Baptist church choir. At the same age, she made an unsuccessful application for The New Mickey Mouse Club, which starred fellow pop singers Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake, among other future stars.

Simpson attended J.J. Pearce High School in Richardson, Texas. She was discovered singing at a church camp by a head of a small contemporary Christian record label and recorded an album over the next three years; however, the label folded before the record could be released. She dropped out in her senior year in order to tour and promote her demo album, which was funded by her grandmother, Joyce (thus the reason for the name of her 2004 holiday album, Rejoyce: The Christmas Album); she later earned her GED. During this time, she toured with the Christian Youth Conference circuit performing with Kirk Franklin, God's Property and CeCe Winans. She and her father sold copies of the album after her performances.

Tommy Mottola of Columbia Records obtained a copy of the album and, thinking she had potential as a pop singer, signed her as such. Christian influences can still be found in much of her music.

Jessica Simpson - 1999-2002: Pop music beginnings

In late 1999, Simpson released her debut Pop album Sweet Kisses, which reached a peak of number twenty-five on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart and also made the top forty of the U.K. charts. The album proved to be a success, selling two million copies in the U.S. Her first single, the Platinum-selling "I Wanna Love You Forever," reached the top five of the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 singles chart and the top ten in Canada and the U.K. Her second single, a duet with then-boyfriend, now estranged husband Nick Lachey of 98 Degrees, "Where You Are", was a modest radio hit. The last single from the album, the John Mellencamp-sampled "I Think I'm in Love with You" was a top forty hit in the U.S. and a top twenty hit in Canada and the U.K. In 2000, Simpson won two Teen Choice Awards for Choice Breakout Artist and Love Song of the Year ("Where You Are").

Released during the summer of 2001, Simpson's sophomore effort Irresistible reached the top ten of the Billboard 200 and top twenty of the Canadian album chart. Despite this improvement over her debut, the album's sales were less than satisfactory; to-date, it has only managed to be certified Gold in the U.S. for selling 500,000 copies. The title track lead single, "Irresistible", reached the top twenty in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K., as well as the top forty in Australia and Switzerland. A follow-up single entitled "A Little Bit" was also released, but failed to achieve much success. In 2002, Simpson released a remix album that failed to generate much interest among fans.

Jessica Simpson - 2003-2005: Marriage and career development

On October 26 2002, Jessica married Nick Lachey. Simpson famously announced that she remained a virgin until her wedding night, making Lachey the only man she had been with intimately. During the summer of 2003, Simpson and Lachey's reality show Newlyweds began airing on MTV. Although Simpson was moderately famous before the series began, the show is considered responsible for transforming her into a star.

Throughout the run of three seasons, she seemed to epitomize the stereotypical dumb blonde, notably when she asked whether the Chicken of the Sea tuna she was eating was chicken or fish, and when she thought that buffalo wings were made from actual buffalo. Her apparent stupidity made the show a huge hit, making the average rating for each episode about 1.4 million viewers. (The gaffe was also a running joke in a Pizza Hut commercial, where she was shown to be annoyed at having her intelligence mocked again.) When introduced to Interior Secretary Gale Norton, Simpson responded: "You've done a nice job decorating the White House."

Banking on the success of her new popularity, she appeared on a variety show with Lachey on the ABC called the Nick and Jessica Variety Hour in 2004. A pilot for a sitcom on ABC was also planned, but was rejected by network executives in May 2004. During that summer, Simpson won three Teen Choice Awards for Female Fashion Icon, Hottie Female, and Female Reality/Variety TV Star, further proving that Newlyweds had greatly strengthened her overall popularity. In 2005, the series won a People's Choice Award for Favorite Reality Show. Shortly after, Newlyweds wrapped.

Coinciding with Newlyweds, her third album, In This Skin, was released during the summer of 2003. On a whole, the record featured a more mature sound compared to her earlier releases. Though the album initially was not a huge success, it got its chance to rebound on the charts when a special collector's edition was released in the spring of 2004. This helped Skin to reach a peak of number two on the Billboard 200 and the top forty of the U.K. charts, due largely to the success of Newlyweds. The album eventually proved to be her most successful, selling three million copies in the U.S. and allowing her music career a second chance. The record yielded arguably her most successful single to-date, "With You".

During the summer of 2005, Simpson made her first major film appearance as Daisy Duke in The Dukes of Hazzard. The film debuted at number one in the box-office charts, grossing more than thirty million USD. One of the tracks off the soundtrack for the film, "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'", was sung by Simpson. The track won a People's Choice Award for Favorite Song from a Movie in early 2006.

In November 2005, after months of speculation, Jessica Simpson and her husband Nick Lachey officially announced that they had split. Simpson filed for divorce on December 16 2005, citing "irreconcilable differences" ^[1]. She has asked the courts not to grant Lachey spousal support.

Jessica Simpson - Current activities

Simpson's next album, And the Band Played On, is set to be released during the spring or summer of 2006. It has been described as having "a little bit of everything in it," and it will sound like "Billie Holiday, Patsy Cline, Stevie Nicks — it's all over the place. But then there's songs for us girls to dance to in the club," according to Simpson. For the first time, Simpson has participated for much of the process of the creation of the album; she has registered a number of new songs on ASCAP.com and is also the executive producer of the album.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Biography", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki