Jessica Simpson was forced to lose weight by her record company, which wanted her to compete with Britney Spears.
“So when I first started singing, to everyone at the record company, I was supposed to be this pop star,” she told the audience during a concert in Pennsylvania on Thursday.
“You know, we have Britney Spears and we have Christina Aguilera. We love them and we support them. I had to follow in their footsteps,” she explained.
“And I really thought I was signed just on my voice. And all of a sudden I was like, ‘Okay, I need to lose 15 pounds.’ By the way, I was 115 pounds,” she recalled.
Ms Simpson was only 17 when she was told to lose weight, which she said was “difficult” for her.
The musician revealed that at the time of his second album, Irresistible, his label told him: “You need to get a six-pack, but that’s never going to happen.”
“I’m not built like that, right? I have a little belly,” she said proudly.
“It was everything that I needed to be in order for me to be Jessica Simpson, or the Jessica Simpson they believed I should be successful.”
“I always felt like a failure because I was never good enough,” she confessed heartbreakingly.
Last year, Simpson released the two-part EP “Nashville Canyon,” his first new music in 15 years.
The 45-year-old said working on the album over the past three years had “healed” her.
“I feel much more comfortable walking on stage than I do in my living room,” she said. “And it’s such a beautiful feeling. It really is.”
Last December, Simpson confessed that she never felt “enough” early in her music career.
“My whole music career, you know, I had a job, and that was to be a pop star, and I tried, but when you’re young, you never feel good enough, and I’ll tell you, it’s okay to never feel good enough,” she admitted at a concert in Connecticut.
The “With You” hitmaker rose to stardom at just 19 years old with the hit debut single “I Wanna Love You Forever” and her 1999 album “Sweet Kisses” on Columbia Records.
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Simpson went on to release several chart-topping albums, including 2003’s “In This Skin” and 2006’s “Public Affair,” and became a well-known figure in the pop music world.
Her latest album was inspired by the breakup of her marriage to Eric Johnson.
The former couple married in 2014 and have three children together, daughters Maxwell, 14, and Birdie, 7, and son Ace, 12.
