Nick Lachey was a guest Monday on Watch What Happens Live, on Bravo. He was there with his 98 Degrees bandmates promoting their new album, 2.0, which is their first release in 13 years. Also, they’re going on tour this summer with – I sh*t you not – New Kids on the Block and Boyz II Men! That makes me lol so hard, but it’s kind of genius. (Barely related sidenote: did you see John Krasinski and Jimmy Fallon’s lip sync battle in which they do Boys II Men? It’s awesome.)

Anyway Nick was playing this game with host Andy Cohen called “Plead the Fifth” in which he gets asked three questions and he can only plead the fifth on one of them. He was asked about the most overrated boy band of all time (he said “O Town”) and the second question was “What is the best thing about no longer having Joe Simpson as a father in law?” His brother quipped “everything” and Nick said:

“The best thing about not having Joe Simpson as a father in law is that I don’t have to play grab ass under the table on Easter Sunday.”

He was smiling when he said it, and his brother Drew joked “our publicist is freaking out right now.” I swear he was telling the truth, especially when Andy said “that’s funny,” and Nick added “it may not be [funny] tomorrow but it is tonight.” Oh snap, that story is true!

The third question was “a famous person you hooked up with that no one knows about.” Drew said he couldn’t think of anyone because “all my skeletons are out there.”

Later, he was asked about Jessica Simpson and if he still talks to her and he made it clear that he doesn’t. He said “it’s been years, probably six years. It was like another lifetime ago.”

That was a long time ago, but I remember it well since it was such big news. Nick wasn’t the one who wanted to end the relationship. He did an interview back then with Rolling Stone admitting that Jessica pulled the plug before he wanted to break up. He said that still loved her and wanted to be with her and admitted he was heartbroken. He even broke down crying in that interview, but he didn’t trash Jessica or her family, he remained very classy about all of it. There were stories that Joe Simpson caused the end of Jessica and Nick’s marriage, but Nick didn’t pin it on Joe. He just said Jessica was a grown woman. “I don’t pretend to understand Joe. And I can’t speculate about what he did or why he did it or for what purpose. It would be easy for me to blame my divorce on him. That would be convenient. But at the end of the day, Jessica is a grown woman, and she made her own decision.”

So Nick was massively hurt by Joe’s daughter, and he could have easily aired his suspicions at the time that Joe was a creeper. He didn’t do that, he just dropped a line in an interview many years later when it was already known that Joe preferred the company of very young men.

Comments on Joe are at 1:50 into this video:

Nick and Jessica in 2005

photo credit: FameFlynet and WENN.com

Here are some photos of Jessica Simpson, Eric Johnson and baby Maxwell arriving at LAX yesterday. I continue to be rather stunned that Jessica’s second pregnancy is so low-key. I think she learned several lessons from her first pregnancy. One lesson: all of the weight you gain doesn’t just go away when you give birth, even if you have “a lot” of amniotic fluid. Second lesson: there really is no need to make such a public spectacle of yourself while pregnant. I feel like Kim Kardashian is still stuck in that phase and Jessica has moved past it.

Most sites are going with “ready to pop” headlines, but I guess it’s worth noting that Jessica is due around the same time as Kim Kardashian AND Duchess Kate. I suspect they will all give birth, domino-style, within a few weeks of each other, but that won’t happen until late June/early July. Jessica and Kim first, then Kate. Who will go first? I suspect Kim will deliver via pre-scheduled C-section, and Jessica probably will too – didn’t Jessica have a C-section with Maxi? Incidentally, Busy Phillips should be giving birth any day now – I think she is, as they say, “ready to pop”.

But really, who can even look at Jessica’s bump when you can just look at Maxwell? Maxi is 1 year old now, and her hair is really starting to get thick! My mom did the “rooster tail” hair style on me when I was a baby too. Maxi is super-cute, and I think she’s really starting to look like Jessica. She’s a little ham too – she’s super-aware of the cameras.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.

Jessica Simpson had her baby shower this past weekend, and she invited People Magazine along because why not? I think she did that for her first baby shower too. And for both baby showers, Jessica pretty much threw them herself, and she organized them into family-friendly events with lots of food and activities for kids. I can’t believe I remember this, but Maxwell’s baby shower had an Alice In Wonderland theme, right? I believe it did. And for her son Ace Johnson, Jessica did a “Tom Sawyer theme” which is kind of cute-ish, I guess. I’m not one of those hard-and-fast rules of etiquette people when it comes to throwing parties. I think it’s perfectly acceptable for Jessica – who is extremely wealthy – to throw baby shower parties for herself to celebrate her pregnancies. You can see some photos of the arrivals for her baby shower here – Jessica Alba, Chelsea Handler (the hell?), Ken Paves (WHAT?) and Ashlee Simpson were all in attendance.

Since Jessica invited People Magazine, it was the perfect excuse to give People an exclusive interview about how her second pregnancy is going:

She may be a self-proclaimed girly-girl but at her Los Angeles baby shower Sunday, Jessica Simpson couldn’t help but gush over gifts she opened up for her baby boy.

“I’m so excited to have a son,” Simpson, 32, tells PEOPLE exclusively. “He got all these cute vintage cars and I got a lot of little leather jackets I can’t wait to try out!”

The Fashion Star mentor’s 11-month-old daughter Maxwell Drew got excited too. “She was taking over some of her little brother’s gifts!” says Simpson.

The mom-to-be — whose fiancé Eric Johnson later joined the celebration hosted by Simpson’s mom Tina and attended by sister Ashlee – celebrated her son’s impending arrival with a Tom Sawyer-themed bash created by celebrity event planner Mindy Weiss.

The menu included treats for kids (a grilled cheese station!) and Southern comfort food.

“I always love some fried chicken,” says Simpson, who has been working out three times a week with trainer Harley Pasternak. “This pregnancy I’m active. I’ve only gained half of what I gained in my first pregnancy.”

But she’s just as excited to meet her second child. “I didn’t grow up with a brother and I think the unknown is really exciting,” she says. “I can’t wait to have that connection with our little man.”

[From People]

God, I love some fried chicken too. I had just-made fried chicken for dinner on Monday. And then I had cold fried chicken for dinner last night. Sigh… fried chicken is a weakness. I can pass by donuts, cakes and cookies, but I can’t pass by fried chicken (or French fries). As for Jessica’s statement of “This pregnancy I’m active. I’ve only gained half of what I gained in my first pregnancy” – I think that’s probably true. I think she went buckwild with slutty brownies for her first pregnancy and she genuinely thought the weight would just come off as soon as she had the baby. Now she’s learned that it doesn’t, so she’s taking better care of herself this time around. Lesson learned for Jess!

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.

At the end of the day, when all things are said and done, it really does seem like Papa Joe Simpson was living a lie for most of his life and at some point in late 2011-early 2012, he took a young 21-year-old man as his lover. The man was named Bryce Chandler Hill, and the details of Bryce and Joe’s affair became public last fall, when it seemed like Bryce was being particularly indiscreet. To be fair to Bryce, Papa Joe seemed tired of living a lie too, and he seemed to WANT his wife to find evidence of his gay love affair. And Tina Simpson did find the evidence, and she allegedly confronted Joe about it and some other stuff happened and now they’re doing a fast and dirty divorce. But what happened before Tina filed for divorce? What happened when Tina first found out that her husband, a former Baptist preacher who fathered their two daughters, had taken up with a young gay hustler? Well, according to Radar it was NOT pretty. At all.

Tina Simpson wrote a secret suicide note soon after finding out that her ex-husband Joe Simpson was having a gay affair, RadarOnline.com is reporting exclusively.

Shortly before traveling to New York to confront Joe, 52, about his tryst with 21-year-old model Bryce Chandler Hill in August 2012, Tina scrawled a cry-for-help letter threatening to shoot herself after she discovered her husband’s homosexual tendencies, a source close to the situation tells Radar exclusively.

In the note, Tina, 53, also said she wanted to shoot Joe, her husband of 35 years, for cheating on her, a family insider reveals. Tina left the note in the Encino home she shared with Joe and he found it! Joe immediately handed it to his lawyers who were handling his divorce proceedings.

“Tina was so distraught when she found out about Joe’s secret gay affair, she immediately wrote a suicide note,” a source close to the Simpson family tells Radar. “It was fairly detailed and she said she wanted to shoot herself for what Joe had done to their 35-year marriage. Worse still, Tina wanted to shoot Joe as well. She was just so angry with him.

“But, instead of killing herself, Tina headed straight to a New York hotel to confront Joe about Bryce Chandler Hill. However, when Joe returned to the Encino home in Los Angeles they shared, he found the note, made a copy and gave it to his divorce lawyer as a bargaining tool for the settlement.”

Tina eventually offered Joe half of the family fortune. As RadarOnline.com previously reported, Tina offered Joe the financial settlement because he wanted to put an end to their divorce battle quickly.

“An offer of a 50 percent split of everything under the Simpson name has been offered to Joe,” a source close to the family told Radar. “That includes the coveted Jessica Simpson Collection, which Joe desperately wanted because that’s the real cash cow.”

[From Radar]

While I don’t want to minimize the awfulness of the threat or create some kind of double-standard for violence against philandering husbands, I can understand how Tina would be that raw, that devastated, that angry, that violent. The betrayal was awful and it came it in waves. Joe was cheating. He was cheating on her with a man. He was cheating on her with a really young man. A really young man who was a hustler using Joe as a sugar daddy. Joe was raiding their finances to support his young lover. Wouldn’t you need to vent and at least let your mind wander to the worst case scenario? I’m a big believer in “it’s not against the law to fantasize about committing a horrible a crime.” There are no thought police! So in that sense, I think it’s kind of unfair that Joe used Tina’s note as a tool, a bargaining chip in their divorce. Still, we don’t really know if this is exactly what went down.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.

Here are some photos of Jessica Simpson, Eric Johnson and baby Maxwell Drew out to lunch at King’s Fish House on Saturday in LA. I like how one thing has remained consistent for Jessica through two pregnancies: chica LOVES to eat out. Most of candid photos of Jessica these days are of her entering or leaving a restaurant. Just so. If a pregnant woman wants to have some fish, go ahead. Maxi is looking particularly adorable in these photos too – her hair is getting longer! And I love that Jess “styles” her daughter with little bows and stuff. So cute.

The only thing that bugs me is that mother and daughter are clashing animal prints. Maybe that’s the Southerner in me, but that’s a faux pas! A little animal print goes a long way! Also: Jessica is starting to look much bigger (but she’s still smaller than she was at this point in her first pregnancy). She’s due around the same time as Kim Kardashian, which means Jessica has probably just entered her third trimester.

As for Eric… do you think he’s going to knock her up again just a few months after she gives birth? Like, does he think that will ensure that she keeps him around, if she’s just constantly pregnant? Eric might be trying to lock this down legally, just so Jessica doesn’t have to go through her third pregnancy in three years. Radar reports that Jessica and Eric might have set a date for just after she gives birth to this one:

After canceling a previous wedding date because she became pregnant with her second child, Jessica Simpson has now picked ANOTHER wedding date, RadarOnline.com is reporting exclusively. Jessica and Eric Johnson have decided they will marry this year and penciled in the date. (Probably better to use pencil rather than pen in case you get pregnant AGAIN, Jessica!)

The happy couple will marry just one month after Jessica, 32, gives birth to her baby boy. The two want a summer wedding this year and have thought about a low-key ceremony in Hawaii, after scoping out venues during their Christmas vacation!

“Jessica and Eric are adamant they want to wed this year,” a source close to the Simpson family tells Radar. “Before they found out Jessica was expecting her second child, they’d already set the wheels in motion for a low-key ceremony. But then, they had to put their plans on ice when they discovered Jessica was pregnant. Plus, she wanted to avoid a clash with her best pal CaCee Cobb who had a wedding back in December.”

“So, Jessica and Eric have had to wait it out for the time being. When they were in Hawaii over the Christmas holidays, they checked out a couple of local spots where a small ceremony could be planned this summer. They’re not completely against exchanging their vows in Los Angeles either, but would prefer to do it anywhere else other than their own home,” the source reveals.

[From Radar]

As I’ve said before, I kind of like that Jessica isn’t hellbent on making it official with Eric. I think it shows a shift in her priorities for the better – she’s happy with Eric, she keeps having babies, everything is going well, and that’s her priority, not making a beeline down the aisle. It says to me that she’s choosing substance over style, which is nice for her.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.

I love Maxwell Drew Johnson’s little duckface. She has a natural duckface! Such a pouty little girl. Hopefully in 18 years, she’ll get with Samuel Affleck, who also has a natural duckface. Anyway, these are just some nice photos of Jessica Simpson, Eric and Maxi out for a walk on Easter morning in Toluca Lake. Jessica is covering her bump in Eric’s Yale sweatshirt, a pair of shorts and a pretty nice-looking pair of kicks. Are those Nikes? I’ve had a recent bad run on quality sneakers – even when I buy Nike or Reebok, the heels keep falling apart in, like, two months. Any recommendations would be welcome!

Speaking of heels, did you know that Jessica has had to give up her beloved high heels again? At this point in her first pregnancy, Jessica was still traipsing around LA in sky-high heels, but not with this pregnancy. A source told Us Weekly, “Jessica is no longer wearing heels. Her feet are swollen and hurt, and high heels hurt her back.” And Jessica was tweeting last week about “practicing walking in flats around my house.” Because apparently that’s something you have to practice now?

Jessica and her family were together for Easter at her mom’s home in Toluca Lake. Tina Simpson is renting the house from Jennifer Love Hewitt for $12,500 a month, which sounds like a really crazy rental, right? Maybe Jessica is paying for all of her mom’s stuff now because Joe Simpson can’t have any access to the finances because he’ll just blow it all on hair product and 20-something gay hustlers.

You know Jessica is due around the same time as Duchess Kate and Kim Kardashian, right? I bet it will be like a row of dominos, they’ll all give birth within like 10 days of each other. Who will be first? Jessica or Kim? I feel like Kate will be last of the triad – she’ll cross her legs and make sure that the baby doesn’t come out until Kim’s baby is a few days old.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.

Call me crazy, but doesn’t Jessica Simpson always look better/cuter when she’s low-key in jeans and comfortable clothes, with her big blonde hair going everywhere, wearing barely any makeup? I just think she’s one of those women who is so much more beautiful when she’s keeping it simple. Maybe it’s like the Christina Hendricks thing – no one knows how to style Jessica. No one know how to translate her looks into a really great red carpet look. Anyway, these are pics from the weekend. Jessica was out with Maxwell Drew, her sister and her nephew to lunch and then to Toys R Us. Jess wore a comfortable-looking pair of maternity pants and a loose navy blouse. And she looked great.

I kind of think Jessica is putting most of her styling energy into dressing Maxwell these days. Check out Maxwell’s cute outfit! A summer blouse in yellow with a small floral print, kickass green jeans and leopard-print sandals! I hope Jessica is having fun dressing her daughter – it seems like something Jessica loves to do.

As for Jessica’s second pregnancy – we know she’s having a boy. And we know she’ll probably name him Ace. According to Us Weekly’s witnesses, Jessica registered for baby gifts at Bel Bambini, and she spent part of Friday shopping for boys’ clothes. A witness said, “She seemed to know exactly what she wanted.”

Jessica also recently released a behind-the-scenes video from Fashion Star, her show which is already back on air. My mom watches it – she loves it because she likes the part of the show where department store buyers bid on the clothes. She told me Jessica’s team isn’t doing so well. Anyway, the video is cute but it just reminded me that Jessica looks so much better when a team of people aren’t working to make her look white-blonde and kind of trashy.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.

CB has been doing the Jessica Simpson coverage this week, but this little story was just too good to pass up. How is that I will believe literally anything about Jessica? And don’t say, “Because you’re an idiot, K.” I really do try to treat these tabloid stories with a healthy dose of skepticism… except when it comes to Jess. Maybe it’s because even the worst tabloid stories about Jess usually turn out to be true? Because Jessica has set the bar pretty low on what she will and will not reveal on national television? Because Jessica loves to overshare and we’re about two seconds away from having this story confirmed?

Jessica Simpson is determined to give her unborn child super smarts. The plan? Read to her baby bump!

“People first noticed she was serious when she picked up The Great Gatsby and read it aloud to her stomach,” a confused family insider tells Star. “Everyone just scratched their heads. Reading to a baby bump isn’t going to make your child the next Albert Einstein!”

[From Star Magazine, print edition]

I just love the image of poor Farty thinking she was being so clever and deciding to read to her bump. She hollered to Eric, “Get me one ‘a those fancy books! Tennessee Faulkner WhatsIt.” And Eric came home with The Great Gatsby – which is actually one of the most readable American classics – and Jessica thought she was being so clever. She read Fitzgerald’s words to her fetus in between farts and chicken wings, and all was well with the world.

For what it’s worth, I do believe parents are the first responders to America’s growing literacy crisis. Perhaps the answer isn’t reading F. Scott Fitzgerald to your baby bump, but if your child grows up in a house where their parents read – books, newspapers, magazines, whatever – you are setting a good example. I hope Jessica doesn’t think that the educational advantage of book-readin’ begins and end in the womb.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.

Is there any doubt that Jessica Simpson is a hustler? She’s making the talk show rounds to promote Fashion Star, using her unique brand of low-brow gross-out overshare humor. Have we had another celebrity like this? I mean there’s Snooki, there’s Jenny McCarthy (who merges sexy with gross) and there’s Jessica, who just laughs and talks about how she doesn’t brush her teeth, use birth control, or try to hold in her farts. I’m not even exaggerating with her, she does all these things and it doesn’t even seem like she’s trying to be self-deprecating. She just thinks that it’s interesting to us and that it’s normal to talk like this during nationally televised interviews.

Anyway last night Jessica was on Jimmy Kimmel, where she confirmed US Weekly’s exclusive that she was having a boy. It was a mistake though supposedly, because she dropped it in a joke about “weiners.” That was so planned. I can’t even with this girl, so I’m going to just use Buzzfeed’s excellent compilation of the ridiculous things she said:

“I can’t believe I’m pregnant again.”
“I keep planning on getting married but then I keep getting knocked up.”

“Maybe I should go back to when I was younger I was a virgin before I was married. So maybe I should just completely reverse and stop having sex until Eric and I are married.”

“I would really like to stop being pregnant.”

“Yeah, I’ve been vomiting… The crazy thing is that I never knew that a weiner could actually make me nauseous. Oh shucks! Well I guess told the world that I’m having a boy!”

“I just did it so crude, too. I feel awful. I talked about wieners!”

[From Buzzfeed]

Buzzfeed has the videos of Jessica’s interview if you’re interested, but those quotes pretty much say it all. She always says stuff like this, and now she’s taking it to the next level while using an “aw shucks” act to make it sound accidental. As I mentioned yesterday, I think this is going to get worse, especially when she’s promoting that sitcom she’s allegedly doing.

Here’s a clip of Jessica’s interview with Kimmel:

Jessica posted these photos on her Twitter recently:

Photos courtesy of WENN, Jessica’s Twitter.

I wonder if Jessica Simpson is capable of giving an interview without oversharing. She’ll tell you basically everything, including her bodily processes, and it seems like more of a compulsion than a shtick, like she has no filter. In her latest interview, with Ellen, she wasn’t bad for her, but she still talked about puking during her pregnancy and not using protection this second time she got pregnant, just a few months after having her first. She basically covered the same ground, and the same topics, that she did on The Tonight Show a couple of months ago. (Back then she explained that her second pregnancy was the result of a one night stand – with her husband fiance.) Jessica is promoting “Fashion Star,” the second season of which premieres on Friday.

Ellen: What’s happening?
Jessica: I don’t know, apparently protection was just thrown out the window.

Ellen: Congratulations.
Jessica: We were definitely extremely shocked.

Ellen: How are you feeling compared to the first pregnancy?
Jessica: This pregnancy is the complete opposite. Like with Maxwell, I felt amazing. Like I could do everything, eat everything. Do whatever I wanted. I had a lot of energy. This time around…I’m like exhausted. Eating Tums. That’s my snack of choice.

Ellen: Because you usually like a little bit of a break. You’ve got hands full probably with Maxwell.
Jessica: Absolutely. Maxwell was our focus and then I was puking and lying on the couch.

Ellen: Have you learned anything with the first pregnancy? Are you doing things differently now?

Jessica: Yeah, the first pregnancy I like let loose and I kind of ate everything that I wanted to eat and I just really enjoyed it. This time around I think because I was doing Weight Watchers and I felt super healthy. I’m not really craving as much and I know how hard it is to get off so I’m trying to make healthier, wiser decisions.

But apparently Eric still wanted me so…

Ellen: That’s nice, that’s always nice to know…. Apparently he did.
Jessica: So I can gain as much weight and I will have a husband to be that loves me.

[From Ellen]

That’s nice that she feels like her husband fiance isn’t bothered by her pregnancy weight gain and she’s not stressing over that. I gained a lot too and my husband didn’t really seem to care, but I still did the diet thing afterwards – for me.

I included that kind of full transcript from the Ellen show because I wanted to show that Ellen wasn’t asking Jessica direct questions. Ellen was just giving very neutral responses and Jessica was launching into her spiel without much prompting. So maybe the whole graphic description overshare is Jessica’s thing and she’s not going to switch it up at this point. It’s probably pretty genuine, for her, and what else is she going to talk about? She has her show and her many fashion lines, but being ditzy and somewhat gross is how she got famous. It’s her bread and butter. She’s even getting a sitcom based on her life, it’s true, and it will probably get worse once that finally happens. It’s all fart jokes from here on out.

Update: I changed references from Jessica’s “husband” to her “fiance”. I keep thinking they’re already married!

Here’s video of Jessica’s appearance on Ellen:

Header photo credit: Michael Rozman/Warner Bros. Jessica is shown below out on 2-21. I like her pregnancy style here. Credit: FameFlynet