This week, Jessica Simpson spoke out about being body-shamed in the media following the release of an oral history of the Met Gala. In it, former Vogue editor Sally Singer made comments about her boobs ‘falling out of her dress’ and a representative for the magazine was later forced to apologise for the remarks.
‘One year Jessica Simpson was there with John Mayer,’ Singer said in the reading. ‘She was wearing Michael Kors and her breasts maybe fell out of her dress on the red carpet…at dinner it was suddenly like, whoa, Jessica Simpson’s breasts are across from me at the dinner table and they are on a platter and I’m looking at them.’
Condemning the comments, Simpson posted the infamous 1957 picture of Jayne Mansfield and Sophia Loren whore Loren is seen giving Mansfield’s boobs the side-eye. ‘Feeling a little like Jayne Mansfield after reading this (inaccurate!) oral history of the #MetBall where I am body shamed by #SallySinger,’ Simpson said.
‘I have persevered through shaming my own body and internalizing the world’s opinions about it for my entire adult life. To read this much anticipated article about the classiest fashion event there is and have to be shamed by another woman for having boobs in 2020 is nauseating.’
The post sparked support for Simpson, with nearly 3,000 comments from fans and celebrities alike, but unfortunately – as the singer turned fashion designer mentioned – this incident is just one of many she has had to endure throughout her entire career.
I thought of Simpson earlier this week, when the conversation turned to the way the public feels a sense of ownership about female celebrities' bodies - and particularly, their weight (see this week’s response to Adele’s latest Instagram picture). It led to the rediscovery of one particular Vanity Fair article about Simpson. At the time, a picture of Simpson performing at a strawberry farm where she appeared not be the shock size two the public knew and loved had just circulated and sent tabloids into a frenzy of body shaming (‘Jessica Simpson: This Is How She Rolls,’ read a TMZ headline at the time).
Published in 2009, the article titled ‘The Jessica Simpson Question’ sees author Rich Cohen profile Simpson with a hatred reserved for women in the public eye – particularly those that dare to gain a pound. In fact, the 5,000-plus word profile is so savage in its projection of her as a vapid sex object manipulated by everyone around her and now useless because she ventured beyond a size zero, you would hardly believe she was their cover star that month.
For reference, you only need read the following excerpt in which – after nine paragraphs detailing how her career has flopped – Cohen details going to lunch with Simpson and not being able to get her weight gain out of his mind.
‘Jessica seemed nervous. Her hands trembled. She ordered a glass of Pinot Grigio. It seemed to calm her. She didn’t want to talk about her weight, so, of course, that’s all I could think of—it gilded each question in my mind: What are you working on now [that you’re fat]? Do you see yourself as part of a class, with Christina and Britney [or are you too fat]? Do you feel that your relationship with Tony Romo has affected his performance as a quarterback [because you are fat]?’
The paragraph is unpleasant to read in 2020, but it was then, too. In fact, the article received so much backlash it marked a turning point in how the media discussed female celebrities' weight. Now, looking at Simpson’s career and reputation in 2020, it makes you wonder how she would have fared had she entered stardom a decade or two later.
Because, despite growing up in the era of Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, for some (sad, likely sexist) reason, Simpson had been filed into a different box in my mind. When I thought back to her, I didn’t remember the hits – and she has had many – or the movie roles. Instead, she was filed in the Paris Hilton-esque reality-TV-star box under the name ‘is tuna chicken or fish?’.
After reading the Vanity Fair article, I fell down an internet rabbit hole of Jessica Simpson content and quickly realised that Simpson was truly cheated by a misogynist world that couldn’t see more than one woman shine at a time and accepted nothing less than picture-perfect looks.
Cohen himself refers to this narrative except he makes it her problem ('Simpson, who, like all starlets, has been careful to be pictured in just one way: as the skinny, forever-24-year-old sex bomb') and continues to contribute to the very reason young women in the public eye feel – or felt – the need to appear agelessly beautiful by blaming her supposed career failures on her weight gain. It’s worth noting too that this supposed ‘weight gain’ was short-lived, with Cohen admitting that she appeared ‘skinny again’ by the time of the interview.
Had she not been subject to such societal norms that, in her own words meant she ‘always came third’ to Spears or Aguilera – lest we have too many talented women in pop, the horror – perhaps she would be remembered with the same iconic status they are to this day. Because she wasn’t without their talent. You need only watch her perform her debut single, ‘I Wanna Love You Forever’, to see she had the pipes that would keep her in the top 10 today for weeks on end.
In fact, her first label executive, Tommy Mottola told Cohen she had more than enough to stand out in a supposedly crowded space of pop phenomenons. ‘She had a great little look and a great attitude, a fresh new face, and something a bit different than Britney and all of them,’ he said. ‘She could actually sing.’
And, she may have never ended up in reality TV, cast with a ‘dumb blonde persona’ Cohen admits is not indicative of her true character. ‘To make it work, Jessica was cast in a simple role, stereotypical 50s-sitcom ditz, which she is not,’ he writes. ‘If you sit with her and talk, you see that she is smart, reads, thinks, cares, wants to know, but viewers came away with just a few images.’
I certainly came away with that image, and reading about her life, listening to her music again now, I can’t imagine how that was the only thing that stuck in my mind when this woman had so much more to offer the world. Well, I can – the patriarchy. And while I sit here, listening to 'A Public Affair' for the 11th time today, all I can think about is how many other amazing and talented female icons were cheated in the same way she was.
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