Jessica Simpson Says Label Pressured Her to Slim Down to Match Britney Spears

Jessica Simpson says Columbia Records pushed her to reshape herself in the late 1990s pop race, when Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and others were dominating the charts. In an interview with Us Weekly, Simpson said executives expected her to fit the same mold as Spears. “I thought they signed me because of my voice, but then they said, ‘Well, you need to lose 7 kilos,’” she recalled.

At the time, Simpson said she weighed just over 52 kilograms, and was 17 years old when she was told she was too heavy. She said the demands continued into her second album, when the label wanted her to have visible abs. “I was supposed to be this pop star. I had to follow them,” she said, adding, “I am just not built for that.” Simpson said she often felt like a failure because she was never “good enough.”

She has previously described being compared constantly with Spears and Aguilera, saying she had no chance of winning because they sold far more records. She also said she did not want to dance or wear a headset microphone, but agreed to those expectations because she did not want to disappoint anyone. She added that she was also not singing songs she had written herself.

Simpson’s early albums sold reasonably well and produced several hits, but she never matched Spears or Aguilera in popularity or sales. She later found success as an actress and in reality TV, especially on “Newlyweds,” where she starred with then-husband Nick Lachey for three years before they split in 2005. Simpson has also spoken publicly about recovering from alcohol addiction and about years of dieting and weight-loss efforts.

In 2022, she said her focus was not weight loss but “a journey of empowerment, self-love and acceptance.” She now has three children, Maxwell, Birdie and Ace, with ex-husband Eric Johnson, whom she divorced last year after 11 years of marriage. Simpson said that six months after her youngest son was born, she lost more than 45 kilos gained during her pregnancies. Sources close to her said the weight loss was one of the main factors behind the divorce.