12/09/2025
Jessica Simpson is reflecting on her early days as a pop star — and how far she’s come.
During her concert on Sunday, Dec. 7, at Foxwoods Resort Casino in Mashantucket, Conn., the singer spoke candidly about the pressure she felt stepping into the music industry as a young artist.
“My whole music career, I had a job, and that was to be a pop star, and I tried,” she told the crowd. “When you’re younger, you never feel good enough, and it’s okay to not feel good enough.”
After a 15-year break from releasing music, Simpson returned in 2025 with Nashville Canyon Part I and II. Recording in Nashville became a healing experience for her.
“I do love Nashville,” she said. “It brought me home, to myself. It brought me inside of my heart in a really hard time of my life. I had to surrender to my intuition…to the light that was in front of me.”
Simpson stepped back onto the stage earlier this year at the Recording Academy’s Austin Chapter Block Party at SXSW — her first performance in 15 years. “This time, I needed to remember who I was… and forget who they told me to be,” she said.
Her hiatus followed a difficult period in which she was dropped from her label after her 2008 country album Do You Know. She revealed she was “mad at music” and needed distance. Now, with eight years of sobriety behind her, she feels renewed.
Speaking to The Cut in February, Simpson explained how sobriety reshaped her songwriting. “I have songs from those times that I never released because they didn’t feel like me,” she said. “Every time I would write, I was a little afraid of myself… But once I gave up the alcohol, the fears just diminished.”
The star is now embracing a new chapter — grounded, confident, and reconnecting with the music that has always been a part of her.
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