Jessica Simpson Posts ‘Unrecognizable’ Photo Of Herself To Mark Six Years Of Sobriety

Jessica Simpson shared a six-year-old photo of herself taken on the date she decided to stop drinking.

In the photo, Simpson sits on the couch in a pink tracksuit, lost in thought as a sunbeam illuminates her face.

Simpson had originally posted the photo to her Instagram on November 1, 2021, to celebrate her four years of sobriety.

On Thursday, she shared the picture again via her story, and wrote: “6 years ago.”

In the 2021 post’s caption, she wrote, “This person in the early morning of Nov 1, 2017 is an unrecognizable version of myself. I had so much self discovery to unlock and explore. I knew in this very moment I would allow myself to take back my light, show victory over my internal battle of self respect, and brave this world with piercing clarity.”

Simpson explained that her reliance on alcohol made her exhausted, her “mind and heart circling in the same direction.”

She wrote, “There is so much stigma around the word alcoholism or the label of an alcoholic. The real work that needed to be done in my life was to actually accept failure, pain, brokenness and self sabotage. The drinking wasn’t the issue. I was. I didn’t love myself. I didn’t respect my own power. Today I do… I am free.”

The actress revealed in her 2020 memoir Open Book that her unhealthy relationship with alcohol and pills began in 2007 while she was with John Mayer, in the wake of her divorce from Nick Lachey.

She said of Mayer, “He was so clever and treated conversation like a friendly competition that he had to win… when I tried to leap back in and say something to add to the dialogue he was having with himself he would challenge what I said and I’d get quiet. I was so afraid of disappointing him that I couldn’t even text him without having someone check my grammar and spelling.”

This pressure and insecurity pushed Simpson to turn to alcohol and pills as a nepenthe. 

Simpson sang in a choir throughout her childhood and signed with Columbia Records in 1997 when she was 17. Her debut album, Sweet Kisses, sold over two million copies in the United States.

In 2014, Simpson married Eric Johnson. The two share three children.

In July, fans were alarmed when Simpson posted gaunt-looking photos of herself to social media.