Welcome Back, Jessica Simpson

"I’m not with a record label. I don’t expect it to even be on the radio," Simpson said of her forthcoming EP. Based on these statements, I can guarantee it's going platinum in my house.

By Audra Heinrichs | February 21, 2025 | 10:19am

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Today, I offer some new news that will be no doubt be significant to all those who still turn to YouTube to watch Jessica Simpson‘s “A Public Affair” music video (aka her 2006 riff on a Madonna song), co-starring Christina Applegate, Eva Longoria and Christina Milian. The singer-songwriter and celebrity shoe line magnate is coming out of a 15-year retirement from music to self-release what sounds like both a comeback and a divorce album. I have, in fact, prayed for times like these.

On Friday, Simpson released her first new (and surprising) song in 16 years, “Use My Heart Against Me.” And in a new interview—conducted by her sister, Ashlee Simpson Ross—Simpson shared the title of the forthcoming EP (and what sounds like a real passion project for her), and what (or, more fittingly, who) inspired it. In short: anyone who’s wronged her since her singing debut in 1999.

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On Nashville Canyon Part 1 (yes, there are two parts), Simpson will not only address her January 2025 split from her husband of 10 years, Eric Johnson, but she’ll further establish some distance between Simpson and her pop star past, which she reflects on during the conversation.

“I had to be a pop star because I signed on to be a pop star,” Simpson said, alluding to her label’s expectations. “No matter what, there was never going to be enough sales, there was never going to be recouping, because they would put so much into me trying to win. You’re a by-product of this company that’s making them money. I didn’t realize that until I was dropped in 2008 or ’09 by my country-music label with my first No. 1 country album.”

“It took me a while to realize that I deserved to work for myself,” Simpson said, noting that not only did she move to Nashville to write and record the project, but she also isn’t working under a label this time.

“I don’t care if anything’s a hit,” she said. “I’m not with a record label. I don’t expect it to even be on the radio.” Based on these statements alone, I can guarantee it’s going platinum in my house.

Though she didn’t offer too many specifics, Ross said Nashville Canyon Part 1 has “an Americana, rockabilly, timeless, old-school, classic vibe.” You know what? Hell yeah. Simpson has been teasing the EP on Instagram since November 2024, back when fans noticed that her husband’s usual appearances had been missing from her account.

“Interviews in my Nashville music room where I unearthed my singular magic,” she wrote in a November 11 Instagram post. “This comeback is personal, it’s an apology to myself for putting up with everything I did not deserve.” According to the Daily Mail, sources liken the EP to “a bit like the Alanis Morissette‘s Jagged Little Pill album” and that it’s “very raw and full of wild emotion.” Frankly, anyone who’s the least bit surprised by this is woefully unfamiliar with Simpson’s discography.

The conversation is full of other little gems but among the most striking is an anecdote about Prince—a friend, who she used to have deep talks about religion with—framing a photograph of Simpson’s smile for his mantel and showing it to her at a Grammys party.

“I want you to look very closely at that smile and know that no matter how many talks we have about being Jehovah’s Witness or nondenominational or Baptist or whatever it is, God is in that smile,” he said. “Don’t let any man ever take that smile away from you, and do not let this music business take that smile away from you.”

If this EP is as good as it’s hyped to be, I, too, will frame a photograph of Simpson’s smile for my mantel.

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