Name: Jessica Simpson
Birth Name: Jessica Ann Simpson
Height: 5' 3"
Sex: F
Nationality: American
Birth Date: July 10, 1980
Birth Place: Dallas, Texas, USA
Profession: singer
Education: J.J. Pearce High School Richardson in Texas (graduated in 1998)
Husband: Nick Lachey (member of 98 Degrees; born on November 9, 1973; married on October 26, 2002 in Austin, Texas; separated on November 23, 2005)
Father: Joe Simpson
Mother: Tina Simpson
Sister: Ashlee Simpson (actress; born on October 3, 1984)
Claim to fame: Album: Sweet Kisses
Fan Mail : Jessica Simpson Fan Club
5116 North Jupiter Road
Garland, TX 75044
USA
favorite song on her album: heart of innocence & where you are
favorite food: tex-mex & chicken fried steak
favorite restaurant: chewy's [thanx lyz for clearin dis up!]
favorite color: red
favorite cd: mariah carey's christmas album
favorite movie: anything romantic or anything with julia roberts
favorite tv show: dawson's creek
favorite singers: mariah carey, whitney houston, celine dion
high school attended: j.j. pierce [this too!]
Biography
Early life and beginning
Simpson was born in Waco, 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.
1999�2002: Pop music beginnings
Irresistible album coverIn late 1999, Simpson released her debut 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 UK 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 UK. Her second single, a duet with then-boyfriend Nick Lachey of boyband 98 Degrees, "Where You Are", was a modest radio hit. The last single from the album, "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 UK. In 2000, Simpson won two Teen Choice Awards for Choice Breakout Artist and Love Song of the Year ("Where You Are"). In 2000, Jessica appeared on the 98 Degrees video My Everything.
Released during the summer of 2001, Simpson's second 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 UK, as well as the top forty in Australia. A follow-up single entitled "A Little Bit" was also released, but failed to achieve substantial success. In 2002, Columbia Records released a EP remix album titled This Is the Remix containing electro-dance remixes of Jessica's biggest hits.
2003�2005: Marriage and career development
On October 26, 2002, Simpson married Nick Lachey. She 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 the crowning glory of her career.
Throughout the run of four 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 helped make 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". It has been suggested that her apparent lack of intelligence is simply an act she has parlayed into various commercial, television and film endorsements.
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 for Newlyweds. In 2005, the series won a People's Choice Award for Favorite Reality Show and wrapped shortly after.
In This Skin album coverSimpson's third album, In This Skin, was released during the summer of 2003 to coincide with the premiere of Newlyweds. Though initially the album was not a huge success, it rebounded on the charts when a special collector's edition was released in the spring of 2004. It subsequently reached a peak of number two on the Billboard 200 and the top forty of the UK charts, due largely to the success of Newlyweds. The album eventually proved to be her most commercially successful, selling almost three million copies in the U.S.; it also yielded arguably her most successful single to-date, "With You".
Simpson released a holiday album in late 2004 entitled ReJoyce: The Christmas Album, which sold moderately. 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 on the U.S. box-office chart, grossing more than thirty million USD. One of the songs from the film's soundtrack, "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.Her performance however, was lambasted by film critics, and she was nominated for worst supporting actress in the Razzie Awards;Jessica's sister Ashlee was also nominated for her role in the film Undiscovered.
In November 2005, after months of speculation, 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. Since, the couples divorce has been highly publisised worldwide. Lachey is reportedly trying to take half of the couples joint worth. Together they are worth $80million, but Nick has contributed a mere $6 million. At the time of their marriage, Nick was wealthier from the Boy Band 98 degrees, since Simpson has shot to superstardom with a net worth of more than $79 million. The couple sold their Calabassas mansion to Malcolm in the Middle star, Justin Berfield for an undisclosed amount.
2006: Currently
Simpson's next album, And the Band Played On, is set to be released May 16 with Epic Records. It has been described by Simpson 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 in her career Simpson is co-writing and co-producing her own material; she registered a number of new songs on the website for the ASCAP and is also the executive producer of the album.
Simpson also expanded her market in the fashion world by announcing the release of her shoe collection to be released in major department stores across the US starting in February 2006. She is also featured in a new Pizza Hut commercial for their new Cheesy Bites Pizza, singing a variation of "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'" called "These Bites Are Made For Poppin'" The commercial also features a short cameo appearance by Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy.
Jessica has also started filming her second movie Employee of the Month, with Dane Cook, in New Mexico, as well as being signed on to star in her third movie, Major Movie Star.
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