Talk about getting candid. Jessica Simpson, 38, is opening up about a lot about her personal life in her new memoir Open Book that is expected to be released on February 4. One aspect that she talked in detail about is the rise and downfall of her marriage with Nick Lachey, 46, which was one of the most talked about relationships in the early to mid 2000’s thanks to their MTV reality series Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica. “In 1998, when I was 18, I met Nick Lachey of the group 98 Degrees at a Hollywood event,” the mother-of-three wrote. “‘Hi I’m Nick,’ he said. Hello, my life. I thought.” That initial meeting led to them getting married four years later. “Nick loved the fact that I was so strong in my faith and that I had this wide-eyed innocent approach to life. When he proposed in 2002, I said yes.”
“But our anxieties about our careers just seemed to feed off each other,” she continued. “We had been together almost seven years when I told Nick, ‘I think I want a divorce.’ I later heard that he told the press he was blindsided. I don’t know how. At that point we were not even speaking to each other. Maybe he was just shocked that I stood up for myself. I don’t think he ever thought I would take the leap.” The former couple announced they were separating in November 2005 before their divorce was officially finalized on June 30, 2006. She said that their marriage was her “biggest financial mistake” in a 2015 interview due to her reportedly having to pay Nick $12 million in their divorce as she didn’t sign a pre-nup before they wed.
Both Jessica and Nick found love that has stuck in the years since. She married NFL player Eric Johnson, 40, in 2014 where the two share three children with one another. The Drop The Mic host is also a parent to three kids with television personality Vanessa Minnillo, 39, who initially starred in his music video “What’s Left Of Me” after his split from Jessica.
Other topics that Jessica talked about in Open Book included her heartbreaking battle with addiction after she experienced sexual abuse. PEOPLE obtained exclusive excerpts from it where she recalled becoming dependent on alcohol and drugs and admits that she was warned that she could die. “I was killing myself with the drinking and pills,” she writes in the book.