Jessica Simpson, John Mayer Break Up 9 Times: A Wild Romance Retreat

When Jessica Simpson you are married Eric Johnson in July 2014, it seemed like the last time – but, as the couple announced their separation almost ten years later on Monday, January 13, we remember the last time the singer endured a public separation. That could be his new relationship with her John Mayer, which ended in 2010, just months before she met Johnson. Let's look back at what went down during the unlikely union – including nine breakups in four years.

How It Began

Simpson, now 44, told this story – and many more! – in his most revealing 2020 autobiography, Open the Book. When she first met Mayer, now 47, it was 2005 and she was still married to him Nick Lachey. These two artists, who are very different in style, are introduced to Clive DavisPre-Grammy party, Mayer compliments Simpson on his hit song, “With You”. They became occasional penpals and, when Simpson divorced Lachey in 2006 after four years of marriage, they began seeing each other secretly.

In early 2007, they were seen together regularly, but it wasn't until Mayer was interviewed by. Ryan Seacrest at the Grammys that year when he appeared to confirm their relationship… except, in his quirky style, he did it in Japanese, saying words roughly translated as “She's a lovely woman, and I'm glad to have her.” Oh-kaaaay.

How Long Did It Take?

The couple's first split was widely reported in May 2007, but they soon got back together. In fact, Simpson recalled while promoting her book that they actually broke up eight times before calling it quits in 2010. “We were very close,” he said in 2020. Today interview. “We loved each other very much. That was easy, but the relationship was very complicated. And it was always there again, gone-again, closed again. And I went back about nine times!”

How it ended

Well, you probably know this part already. In an interview with 2010 Playboy that quickly gained fame, Mayer was very open about his alcoholic relationship with Simpson, ruling out all chances of them meeting for the tenth time – thank you!

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“That girl is a drug to me,” he said. “And drugs don't help you if you do a lot of them. Yeah, that girl is like crack cocaine to me. Sexually, it was crazy. That's all I have to say. It was like napalm, sex napalm. Have you ever said, 'I want to give up my life and just find you? If you charge me $10,000 to f— you, I'm going to start selling all my stuff— just to keep it.”

Understandably, the bright-eyed Simpson wasn't happy about being described in such crude terms (he later said, “I was so upset and embarrassed that my grandmother would read that”) and promptly fired the singer-songwriter. his life. “I deleted his number,” she wrote in her memoir. “You made it easy for me to leave. I did not accept his apology. I deleted all his contact information from my phone. I was done with this man in a way I never thought possible. When he reached out to me, I changed my number and changed my email. Remove.” Boom – there's that napalm in action!

What Each Says

Thankfully, some of the couple's comments about their relationship echoed the grandmother's.

“He would go into the room and pick up his guitar, and he'd pass out,” Simpson said. People in 2020, recalling his first impression of Mayer when they met. “I didn't really know anyone who plays the guitar. And that was my job.”

And in February 2007 in interview no Time to Get Out of New YorkMayer said he doesn't mind if people think they're an odd couple. He said: “I'm having the best time of my life. So if the words don't appear to people, that's too little for me.

What They Say Now

Since their relationship was so surprising and, ultimately, controversial, it is a topic that has come up many times in discussions over the years – as well as receiving full analysis Open the Book.

“He wanted to be with me or nothing,” Simpson wrote. “He kept telling me that he was obsessed with me, sexually and emotionally. I would get up to go to the bathroom, and John would ask, 'Where are you going?' When I was married, my ex-husband couldn't be bothered to find out what city I was in. It felt safe to wish. I know that John will never cheat on me, and that confidence was a new feeling for me.”

Simpson said Mayer's sexist comments about her felt like an unexpected betrayal by a man she thought she could trust to serve her. He wrote: “He thought that was what I wanted to be called. “A woman and how they sleep is not something that has ever been talked about. It was shocking. He was the most honest person in the world, and when I learned he wasn't, that was me.”

While promoting the book, Simpson told E! News that Mayer was pardoned… sort of. “I don't think I should apologize to the public,” he said. “You can't take it back. I am also very forgiving, but also honest. So, in a memoir, if I'm going to talk about things that hurt me, I'm going to be honest about it. And that was the time in my life when I was most deceived and most in love, so to speak.”

The old and wise Simpson also knows now that his friends were never on board with the relationship. “He used to dump me, and then he said that he found out that he loves me,” he wrote. “I always saw it as taking me mercilessly in the cold. Every time John came back, I thought it was a continuation of the love story, while my friends saw a guy coming back to sleep with some stupid girl.”

Simpson also noted in the book that, during the relationship, she worried that Mayer was too smart for her – a source of sympathy because at the time she was cast as a “dumb blonde” which, of course, we have since learned. I couldn't get further from the truth.

“I always worried that I wasn't smart enough for him,” she wrote. “He was so smart and treated the conversation like a friendly competition that he had to win.” He even said that he used to get friends to read his messages for him, in case he judged any mistakes. “My anxiety was rising and I poured myself another drink,” she said. “It was the beginning of me relying on alcohol to numb my nerves.”

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Since then Playboy in the interview, Mayer has been a little tight-lipped about his time with Simpson — but when Open the Book published in 2020, a close friend of Mayer Andy Cohen talked to him about the topic. “I heard about it,” said Mayer of the memoir. “I have heard a little. But as Pee Wee Herman says in Pee Wee's Big Adventure before the movie of his life is finally set to play, he doesn't watch the movie, and the reason he doesn't watch the movie, he says, 'I don't have one. to look at it, Dottie, I lived it.' And I think that's smart here. “

But has Mayer ever formally apologized for the “sexual napalm” comments that hurt Simpson? Well, almost. On stage in Nashville in 2010, he was filled with regret, explaining “In the pursuit of wisdom, I completely forgot about the people I loved and the people who loved me” and said he had been “in a shell of selfishness, selfishness. and arrogance”.

Later, in 2012, in an interview on NPR's All Things Consideredgave the same explanation. “I didn't say anything,” he said. “I was going through a period where I didn't really want to talk about what was going on, but I didn't want to be boring. When you just open, but you are not reliable, then you start a garbage collection for free. It doesn't mean I can go back and scrub it, but I understand now.”

Important Relationship Steps

This relationship was actually a ticking time bomb. As Simpson himself said in his book, “He loved me as much as he could and I loved that love for a very long time. It's too far. And I went back and forth with it for a long time. But I'm in control.”

Some people even believed that Simpson changed her image of Mayer, dying her trademark blonde hair to please her – but she insists that this was not true. “He didn't make me a brunette,” she said Seduction after their separation. “John doesn't get credit for making me a brunette. He would like to think so, but he does not deserve the praise.”

With both stars now seemingly single, we doubt Simpson will be opening Mayer's number anytime soon. Because ultimately, as he puts it, “That was Jess in her 20s.

Now, as a 44-year-old mother of three, she knows better – and Mayer? He hasn't been sloppy since then, so maybe they both learned something.