Jessica Simpson, John Mayer Break Up 9 Times: Wild Romance Rewind

When Jessica Simpson married Eric Johnson in July 2014 it appeared to be for the fort – but s the couple announced their separation roughly ten years later, on Monday, January 13, we remember the last time the singer endured a public breakup. That would be her on-off relationship with John Mayer which ended in 2010, just months before she met Johnson. Let’s take a look back at what happened during the unlikely union — including nine breakups in four years.

How it started

Simpson, now 44, helpfully told that story—and many more! — in his highly revealing 2020 autobiography, Open book. When she first met Mayer, now 47, it was 2005 and she was still married Nick Lachey. Two musicians with very different styles presented themselves Clive Davis‘s pre-Grammy party, with Mayer complimenting Simpson on her hit ballad, “With You”. They became occasional friends, and when Simpson divorced Lachey in 2006 after four years of marriage, they began seeing each other secretly.

They were seen together regularly in early 2007, but only when Mayer was interviewed Ryan Seacrest at the Grammys that year when he seemingly confirmed their relationship… except, true to his quirky style, he did it in Japanese, saying words that roughly translate to “She’s a beautiful woman and I’m glad to be with her.” Oh- kaaaay.

How long did it take?

The couple’s first split was widely reported in May 2007, but they were soon back together. In fact, Simpson recalled while promoting her book that they actually broke up eight more times before finally calling it quits in 2010. “We were great at intimacy,” she said in 2020. Today interview. “We were great at making love. It was easy, but the relationship was very complicated. And it was always on-again, off-again, on-again off-again. And I came back almost nine times!”

How it ended

Well, you may already know this part. In a 2010 interview with Playboy who quickly gained infamy, Mayer was a little too revealing about his heady relationship with Simpson and blew away any chance of a 10th reunion – thank goodness!

“That girl is dope to me,” he said. “And drugs aren’t good for you if you take a lot of them. Yeah, that girl is like crack to me. Sexually it was crazy. That’s all I’ll say. It was like napalm, sexual napalm. Have you ever said, ‘I want to end my life and just snort you? If you charged me $10,000 for you, I would start selling all my money just to stay with you.”

Understandably, the professionally screeching Simpson wasn’t thrilled to be described in such vile terms (“I was on the floor and I was embarrassed that my grandma was actually going to read this”), and promptly cut the singer-songwriter out of her life. “I deleted his number,” she wrote in her memoir. “He made it easy for me to leave. I did not accept his apology. I deleted all his contact information from my phone. I ended up with that man in a way I never thought possible. When he contacted me, I changed my number and email. Erase.” Boom – there’s the napalm in action!

What they said about themselves

Thankfully, some of the couple’s other comments about their relationship were a little more grandmotherly.

“He’d walk into the room, pick up the guitar, and you’d pass out,” Simpson said People in 2020 and recalled her first impressions of Mayer when they met. “I really didn’t know the man behind the guitar. And that was my mission.”

And in February 2007 chat with Time Out New YorkMayer said he 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 so small to me.

What are they saying 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 breakdown in Open book.

“He wanted me all or nothing,” Simpson wrote. “He told me over and over that he was obsessed with me, sexually and emotionally. I got up to go to the bathroom and John asked, ‘Where are you going?’. While I was married, my ex-husband couldn’t be bothered to find out what city I was in. I felt safe to be desired. I know John would never cheat on me, and that trust was a new feeling for me.’

Simpson said Mayer’s intensely sexual comments about her felt like an unexpected betrayal from a man she thought she could count on to adore. “He thought I wanted to be called that,” she wrote. “The woman and how they are in bed is never discussed. It was shocking. He was the most loyal person on the planet, and when I read that he wasn’t, that was everything to me.”

Simpson said while promoting the book AND! News that Mayer is forgiven… sort of. “I certainly don’t feel like he owes me a public apology,” she said. “You can’t take it back. And I’m a very forgiving person, but I’m also honest. So in the memoir, if I’m going to talk about things that caused me pain, I’m going to be honest about it. And that was a time in my life when I was very manipulated and also very much in love, or so it seemed.’

The older and wiser Simpson also now knows that her friends were never on board with the relationship. “He dumped me and then came back saying he loved me after all,” she wrote. “I always saw it when he mercilessly took me in from the cold. Every time John came back, I thought it was a continuation of the love story, while my friends saw a guy coming back to have sex with some foolish girl.

Simpson also noted in the book that she worried during the relationship that Mayer was too smart for her — a source of sensitivity due to her being caricatured as a “dumb blonde” at the time, which of course we’ve since learned. couldn’t be further from the truth.

“I was constantly worried that I wasn’t smart enough for him,” she wrote. “He was so clever and treated the conversation as a friendly competition that he had to win. She even said she used to get friends to read her messages to him in case he picked up on any typos. “My anxiety would rise and I’d pour myself another drink,” she said. “It was the beginning of me relying on alcohol to mask my nerves.

Since Playboy In the interview, Mayer was sensibly silent about his time with Simpson — but when Open book was released in 2020, Mayer’s close friend Andy Cohen discussed the topic with him. “I heard about it,” Mayer said of the memories. “I heard bits and pieces. But as Pee Wee Herman says in Pee Wee’s Big Adventure before the movie of his life starts playing at the end, he’s not watching the movie, and the reason he’s not watching the movie is, “I’m not supposed to see it, Dottie, I lived it. “And I think that’s prudent here.”

But did Mayer ever officially apologize for the “sexual napalm” comments that destroyed The Simpsons? Well, almost. On stage in Nashville in 2010he was filled with regret, explaining, “In trying to be smart, 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 arrogance.”

Later, in 2012, in an interview with NPR’s All things consideredoffered a similar explanation. “I had nothing to say,” he said. “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 are just open but not honest, then you start freely associating garbage. Doesn’t mean I can go back and scrub it off, but now I understand.’

Key information about relationships

This relationship was basically a ticking time bomb. As Simpson herself said in her book: “He loved me as much as he could, and I loved that love for a very long time. Too long. And I went back and forth with that for a long time. But it got the better of me.”

Some people even believed that Simpson changed her image for Mayer, dying her signature blonde brunette to please him – but she says that wasn’t true. “He didn’t turn me into a brunette,” she said Lure after their breakup. “John doesn’t get credit for turning me into a brunette. He’d like to think so, but he doesn’t deserve credit.’

With both stars seemingly single now, we doubt Simpson will be unblocking Mayer’s number anytime soon. Because in the end, as she says, “That was Jess in her 20s.”

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