- You look beautiful!
- I mean...
- It's like we called each other (laughing).
- Yeah, we don't even have each other's phone number,
but, like, telepathically we're like...
- Somehow.
I was just that one outside your house just watching
what you were gonna wear.
- (laughing) Well, - How are you?
Almost everything is leopard so you did look in my house.
- I know, I like an animal print,
I'm not afraid of it.
And especially when they're silky and soft.
- I know, that looks amazing on you.
- But then you find yourself touching yourself like this
and people probably think that's weird.
- I know, they're like, "What are they doing?"
- Yeah, yeah.
(laughing)
How is your family doing?
They're doing amazing.
It's so fun to have a baby, and she's about to be one.
And then the other kids are just getting so old now,
and they just have a mind of their own.
- [Kelly] Are they too cool yet?
- I mean, they have better ideas than any of us.
- Yeah, that's my kids, yeah.
- Like, I have to ask Maxwell if I look cute or not,
because I feel like she would just look at me like,
"Mm, why are you wearing that?", you know (laughing)?
(audience laughing)
- Oh my God, I think my kids sense that they need
to be positive with me or something,
'cause they're always like - Exactly,
"You look beautiful, Mommy."
and I look horrible, and I'm like, "Thank you, liar."
(laughing)
Do your kids like it when you sing?
- Yes, they do.
(stuttering)
With them growing up, they didn't see me perform
until I got on stage with Willy Nelson
right before I found out I was pregnant with Birdy.
- [Kelly] Oh, wow.
- Yeah so, I mean I sang to them, yes.
But with my daughter, my first born, Maxwell,
when I was singing lullaby's to her,
I was like, "This is not gonna make her stop crying."
'Cause it's like, "When the bow breaks,
the cradle will fall, and down will come baby,
cradle and all."
- Everyone dies, yeah.
- Everybody dies!
And so I just sang about America,
I sang "The Star Spangled Banner",
(laughing hysterically)
and I was like, "Okay, she's crying so loud,
"and I have some pipes and a set of lungs."
I can be louder than her,
so I just belted out "The Star Spangled Banner".
And now she sings it in the shower at the top of her lungs.
(laughing)
And she does such a great job,
so I take credit for that.
That was my lullaby.
- [Kelly] Such a credit for that.
(audience applauding)
(laughing)
"That was me."
Your new book, I mean, as a fellow Texan,
there could not be a better title for a Texan.
(laughing)
Your memoir is called "Open Book".
- Yes.
- And is this, like, hard that you,
'cause normally I would ask people,
"Is it hard to share personal stories?",
but I feel like we might be similar,
and it's almost cathartic.
- Yeah
- [Kelly] You're such a, you have no filter.
- I have no filter.
- Which I don't either.
- [Jessica] I've never had a filter.
- Me neither.
- I think it's very important just to be yourself.
And that's what's authentic,
and that's what people love about you.
- Yeah.
(audience applauding and cheering)
- I think that's what people love about you,
is that you're very honest.
- I'm very honest.
- Especially in this book.
You opened up about some pretty personal stuff
that's hard to get through.
And most people, I feel like,
would be afraid to say that in the public eye.
But I think it's so brave of you,
and so cool of you, and strong of you,
because, one, when you address that,
then you know you're actually getting past it.
- Yeah, I mean it definitely,
my openness holds me accountable.
And for me, when I decided to get sober,
I stopped drinking and I just had so much clarity, that,
with my openness, it was just like I started learning
so much about myself and why I had to drink
to try and escape, - Escape.
And try and just feel just normal.
But that was, I thought it was helping with my anxiety,
and it was actually making it worse.
- Yeah, 'cause people will say that like,
"Oh, it's calming.", they say that all the time.
- It's absolutely not calming.
- I know, but I just think it was really brave of you
to come out and say that.
Has it been rewarding, getting it out?
- It has, it's been unbelievable.
I've been on this book tour,
and every city that I'm going into it's like,
these people that come up to me, they're like,
"I'm gonna be sober, I wanna tell you first
"before I tell my family and my parents."
- [Kelly] Yeah, it's connection,
- It's a really deep connection.
I've had mothers come up to me and thanking me.
Like, they're not afraid of therapy.
For some reason...
- Why are people afraid of that?
- People are so afraid
I'm in therapy, I love therapy.
I know, I love therapy.
It's like no judgment, you know?
- Yeah, you can say whatever you want
and they're not in your circle.
- [Jessica] I know.
- You will not be judged.
- [Jessica] You will not be judged.
- And even if you are, you don't know,
you're paying them, it's fine.
- Yeah, exactly, exactly.
They're not your friends. - I'm paying you to listen.
My therapist, at the very beginning,
I was like, "Oh my Gosh, I feel like we're best friends."
And she goes, "I wanna make it very clear
that we're not friends."
(audience laughing)
(laughing)
And I was like, "I don't know if anybody
has ever said that to me."
- I wanna make this very clear,
I don't wanna be your friend. - We're not friends.
Yeah, we're not friends.
- (laughing) I love your therapist.
(laughing)
I've never asked mine, but now I'm going to.
- Then it actually made me wanna make her be my friend,
so I was gonna be open more.
- [Kelly] You're gonna want this.
- I mean, you're gonna want me to be your daughter
by the end of this.
(laughing)
- It felt as if it's a challenge.
That's so Texan.
Okay, well, Jessica's book has been out
for a little over a month.
It even hit number one on "The New York Times"
best sellers, which is amazing.
(audience applauding and cheering)
- It's so exciting.
- Everyone in our audience received a copy.
Let's see 'em, ya'll got your copies?
- Oh, yay! Yay!
(audience cheering)
Look at that hair in that shot, I love your hair.
- You know.
As Jessica just mentioned, many of them
were touched by some of the things that she wrote.
So, would you be up for us maybe taking a couple
questions? - Absolutely yes, please.
- Well, where is Ramsey?
Where's Ramsey?
Hi!
- Hi Kelly, hi Jessica.
- [Jessica] Hi!
- What's your question?
- So Jessica, I heard that you were in a car accident,
and you quoted, "My stutter started soon after,
"and the doctors said it was from the head injury.
"My mom said that when I stuttered it looked
"like my brain and I were trying to say ten things at once.
"My voice just wouldn't work."
So, from this trauma, why did you go into singing?
- Actually, singing was the best way for me to communicate.
- I've heard about that with stuttering people.
- So I got into singing, and that was literally the way
that I could express myself, and how everything was clear.
So yeah, I don't know what caused the stutter.
I mean, it coulda been from the car accident,
something very traumatic, - Traumatic.
other traumatic things that I went through as a child,
and I also have a million thoughts in my head at all times.
- Me too.
- Like somehow trying to balance that,
I might as well just sing through it.
- I love that, I love that.
Great question.
So next question though, is from Ashley, right?
Where's Ashley?
Hi, Ashley.
- [Jessica] Hi, Ashley.
- Hi Kelly, hi Jessica.
So you're talking about being sober,
and you were actually just speaking about that now,
what brought you to the point
where you felt like you had to get sober?
- Well, being a mother, I mean my kids, at the time,
were five and four.
So, I grew up with no alcohol in the house.
And I was at a place where I was literally
spiraling with the alcohol.
And I was missing out on moments with my children.
Then they were seeing me and they were very confused,
and I just wanted to be present, and have clarity,
and be a good role model for my children,
'cause I always wanted to be
a good role model for the world,
so why in the world would I be stuck in this cycle
of having to wake up and have a drink
before going to one of their school assemblies.
It got to the point where all of my life
had escalated and I couldn't suppress it.
And alcohol, it wasn't working,
it was making just completely check out
and not be there for them.
- Isn't it funny?
And then you feel like, 'cause when you're at the height
of your career, people always think you're the happiest.
At the height of my career, I was the most miserable.
- [Jessica] Right, right, right.
And I just wanted to quit.
'Cause I was like, "This isn't worth it."
I was a really good waitress.
(audience laughing)
I was like, I'm just constantly battling just to be me,
which is exhausting.
- [Jessica] Right. Yeah.
You know?
So, it's interesting that at our height
we can be so miserable, - I did it for my kids,
and nobody knows. but I also
realized in the process, I was doing it for myself.
I really wanted to go back to the perspective
that I had when I was younger.
- It's a good idea for a movie or a show.
The journey of going back through that.
- Yeah, it might be in the process.
- Oh!
See, I have good ideas.
(audience applauding)
That's a great idea.
Well okay, on a lighter note, your fashion line,
everything you do is a hit.
Everyone loves your shoes, everyone loves your hair,
everybody loves everything you do.
So, I mean, what's the latest thing you're doing?
- With the fashion line, everything is so natural.
Like when I was pregnant, we did maternity.
And then after I'd had a baby I was like,
"Oh, why in the world can we not snap these buttons
"in the correct way?", and so we put a different color,
the button where the diaper is.
- Are you talking about where it starts to separate?
- Yes!
- It's so annoying.
So everything has been very natural
and we've had such great success
with the Jessica Simpson Collection,
and we never had eCommerce.
And so we've just launched jessicasimpson.com
over this last year.
- Yeah.
- And it's been doing amazing.
'Cause then I get to blog, and then people
can really connect to me and know the world of me.
So now, the sky is the limit for the brand.
And we're just now doing eCommerce,
so it's been just growing,
and there's just so much more.
I want stores, and I want furniture.
My daughter wants a dog line, you know?