when Jessica Simpson married Eric Johnson In July 2014, it looked like it was meant to be — but, with The couple is announcing their separation Almost a decade later, on Monday, January 13, we remember the last time the singer endured a public breakup. With whom he will have an on-off relationship John Mayer, That ended in 2010, months before she met Johnson. Let's look back at what happened during the unlikely union, with nine splits in four years.

How it started

Simpson, now 44, helpfully tells this story — and many others! - in his highly revealing 2020 autobiography, open the book. When she first met Mayer, now 47, it was 2005 and she was still married. Nick Lachie. Two, very stylistically different, musicians were introduced Clive DavisIts pre-Grammy party, where Mayer graced Simpson with her hit ballad "With You." They became occasional penpals and then, when Simpson divorced Lachey in 2006 after four years of marriage, they started seeing each other secretly.

By early 2007, they were being seen together regularly, but this was only when Mayer was interviewed. Ryan Seacrest It was at the Grammys that year that he seemingly confirmed their relationship… except in his weird style, he did it in Japanese, saying roughly "She's a beautiful woman, and I'm glad to be with her." Oh-kaaaay.

How long does it last?

The couple's first split was widely reported in May 2007, but they soon got back together. In fact, Simpson recalled while promoting her book that they broke up eight more times before finally calling it quits in 2010. "We were great at intimacy," he said in 2020 today Interview “We were great at loving each other. It was simple, but the relationship was very complicated. And it was always on-again, off-again, on-again off-again. And I went back about nine times!

How did it end?

Well, you already know this part. In a 2010 interview with playboy In what quickly gained notoriety, Mayer revealed a little too much about her intoxicating relationship with Simpson, ruining all chances of them reuniting for the tenth time — thank goodness!

"That girl, to me, is a drug," he said. "And drugs aren't good for you if you do a lot of them. Yeah, the girl is like crack cocaine to me. The sex, it was crazy. That's all. It was napalm, sexual napalm. Have you ever said, 'I want to give up my life and Just want to rip you off? If you charge me $10,000, I'll start selling all of mine - just to keep you."

Understandably, the professionally clean-cut Simpson wasn't happy about being described in such salacious language ("I was floored and embarrassed that my grandma was actually going to read this," she later said), and she promptly cut the singer-songwriter out of her life, "I deleted her number. ,” he wrote in his memoirs. “He made it easy for me to move. I did not accept his apology. I deleted all his contact information from my phone. I was treated to this man in a way I never thought was possible. When he contacted me, I changed my number and changed my email. Delete.” BOOM — that napalm in action!

What they said about each other

Thankfully, the couple's other comments about their relationship were a little more grandma-friendly.

"He'd walk into a room and pick up his guitar, and you'd be blown away," Simpson said. people In 2020, recalled his first impressions of Mayer when they met. “I never really knew the man behind the guitar. And that was my mission.”

And a February 2007 chat with Time Out New YorkMayer said she doesn't care if people think they're an odd couple. "I'm having the best time of my life," he said. "So if the names don't make sense to people, it's too small for me."

What they say now

Because their relationship was so surprising and ultimately controversial, it's a topic that's come up many times in interviews over the years — as well as getting a full analysis. open the book.

"He wanted to have my all or nothing," Simpson wrote. "Over and over again, he told me he was sexually and emotionally obsessed with me. I'd get up to go to the bathroom, and John would ask, 'Where are you going?'. When I was married, my ex-husband couldn't be bothered to find out what city I was in. .It felt safe to be loved. I knew John would never cheat on me and that confidence was a new feeling for me.

Simpson said Mayer's strongly sexualized comments about her felt like an unexpected betrayal from the man she thought she could count on to adore her. "He thought I wanted to call," she wrote. “A woman and how they are in bed is not talked about. It was shocking. He was the most loyal person on the planet and when I read that he wasn't, that was it for me."

While promoting the book, Simpson said: And! the news That Maya has been forgiven... kind of. "I definitely don't think I owe a public apology." “You can't take it back. And I'm a very forgiving person, but I'm also honest. So, in the memoir, if I talk about things that hurt me, I'm going to be honest about it. And it was a time in my life when I was very driven and very much in love, or so it seemed."

The older and wiser Simpson also now knows that his friends were never on board with the relationship. "He would dump me, then come back and say he discovered he loved me," she wrote. “I have always found him mercilessly picking me up from the cold. Every time John came back, I thought it was the continuation of a love story, while my friends saw a guy coming back to have sex with some stupid girl."

Simpson also mentions in the book that, during the relationship, he worried that Mayer was too intelligent for him - a source of insensitivity at the time, caricaturing her as a "dumb blonde" which, of course, we've since learned couldn't be further from the truth.

"I constantly worried that I wasn't smart enough for him," she wrote. "He was so clever and treated the conversation like a friendly competition that he had to win." He even said he gets friends to proof-read his messages, in case he judges any typos. "My anxiety would rise and I'd pour another drink," she said. "It was the beginning of relying on alcohol to mask my nerves."

since then playboy In interviews, Mayer has wisely kept somewhat quiet about her time with The Simpsons — but when open the book Published in 2020, Mayer's Close Friend Andy Cohen Broached the subject with him. "I heard about it," says Mayer of the memoir. "I've heard some bits. But as Pee Wee Herman says in Pee Wee's Big Adventure that the movie of his life is about to end, he's not watching the movie, and the reason he's not watching the movie, he says, 'I don't have time to see it, Dottie. , I lived it.' And I think it's prescient here."

But did Mayer officially apologize for the "sexual napalm" comments that destroyed The Simpsons? Well, almost. Onstage in Nashville in 2010He was full of regret, explaining that "in my quest to be clever, I completely forgot about the people I loved and the people who loved me" and said he was in a "wormhole of selfishness, greed and pride".

Later, in 2012, in an interview with NPR All things consideredHe offers a similar explanation. He said, I had nothing to say. “I was going through a period in my life where I didn't really want to share what was going on, but I didn't want to be boring. When you're open, but not honest, you'll start spewing open-related garbage. That doesn't mean I can go back and clean it up, but I understand it now."

Key relationship takeaways

This relationship was essentially a ticking time-bomb. As Simpson himself says in his book, "He loved me the way he loved me, and I loved that love for a long time. Too long. And I pushed back on it for a long time. But it controlled me."

Some even believed that Simpson changed her image for Mayer, dying her trademark blonde hair to please her - but she maintains that's not true. "He wouldn't let me be a brunette," she said Mohan After their breakup. “John doesn't get credit for making me a brunette. He'd like to think so, but he doesn't deserve the credit.

With both stars seemingly single now, we doubt Simpson will be unblocking Mayer's number anytime soon. Because in the end, as he says, "that was Jess in her 20s."

Now, as a 44-year-old mother of three, she knows better — and for Mayer? He hasn't been so reckless since then, so maybe they've both learned something.