Jessica Simpson has addressed her battle with alcoholism as she debuted an unreleased song on stage this week. The Dukes Of Hazzard star, 45, performed her song, Give It All Away, which was co-written by Linda Perry, during her concert on Monday night at Yaamava Resort and Casino in Highland, California.
Ahead of her performance, she detailed her past drinking problems and said that is what her new song is about. 'I realised that the drinking wasn't numbing my pain, it was actually causing more pain,' she told the crowd via a video link. 'In all honesty, I'm just a work in progress, and I celebrate each and every day that I feel alive and in my body, and I'm very proud of myself.'
'It felt right to share this song with you and I want all of you to know that you should have a little grace for yourself and everything is gonna be okay if you just give it all away, and that's what this song is about,' she added.
Jessica has been very open about her past struggles, as well as her sobriety journey. Back in November 2025, Jessica celebrated the eight-year anniversary of herself getting sober. At the time, she shared a glowing selfie on Instagram as she opened up about the role alcohol once played in her life and how choosing faith over fear changed everything.
She wrote: '8 years ago today I made the choice to confront, to confess and to let go of the self-sabotaging parts of my life that I was choosing. Making that decision allowed me to fully live in the pursuit of God's purpose for my life. Alcohol silenced my intuition, blocked my dreams and chased my circulating fears of complacency. Today I am clear. Today I am driven by faith.'
'Both fear and faith are something that we feel and may not see, I'm so happy I chose faith over fear. It was not in the fight that I found my strength, it was in the surrender,' she concluded.
Jessica, who announced her separation from husband Eric Johnson in January of that year, has been open about how sobriety has been key to unlocking her creativity again. 'The moment I started drinking too much was when I started writing music in 2016 and it was making me go to places and feel sorry for myself,' she told People. 'I don't know why I wanted to feel sorry for myself other than the alcohol was lying to me and saying, "You're braver because you can say this with me on your side". That sentiment is not true. I actually am so much more honest without alcohol, and I actually believe myself so much more without alcohol.'
Reflecting on the emotional clarity she's gained, Jessica shared, 'I personally feel like it made my emotions quiet. Instead of addressing them, dealing with them and getting through it, I was just letting them be.'
She previously detailed hitting rock bottom on Halloween 2017, when she was too inebriated to help dress her children in their costumes. She and Eric share three children: daughter Maxwell, 14, son Ace, 12, and daughter Birdie, seven. Jessica shared in her memoir Open Book that on Halloween morning, she and Eric were on their way to a school assembly for daughter Maxwell with Jessica in the passenger seat. The star, who also runs a billion dollar clothing/lifestyle brand, recalled that 'it was 7:30 in the morning and I'd already had a drink.'
Afterwards, they headed home and prepped for a Halloween party they were hosting. While she was getting ready for the party with her team gluing on her fake beard and helping her with her wig to look like Willie Nelson, she recalled just zoning 'out.' 'I was terrified of letting them see me in that shape,' she wrote. 'I am ashamed to say that I don't know who got them into their costumes that night.'
Jessica said that after the Halloween party wrapped up, she took an Ambien pill to help her sleep. Her close friends came over the day after Halloween and she told them: 'I need to stop. Something's got to stop. And if it's alcohol that's doing this and making things worse, then I quit.'
Jessica also admitted she was drunk during her famous 2017 Ellen interview where she was slurring her words. She later said: 'I can't watch it. It was a weak moment for me and I wasn't in the right place.' The May 2017 interview famously began with Jessica telling interviewer Ellen that she had gotten an IUD after her first two pregnancies and that 'nothing is gonna get in that uterus'. She then went on to apparently forget how long she had been married to husband Eric and claim she had already recorded 38 -or 37 or possibly 39- songs for a new album. Her antics caused Ellen at several points during the interview to stare at the camera in astonishment. But she now admits that booze was to blame.
'I had started a spiral and I couldn't catch up with myself,' she told Hoda Kotb on The Today Show: 'And that was with alcohol.' She also said: 'I completely didn't recognize myself…I always had a glitter cup. It was always filled to the rim with alcohol. I just realized that I had to surrender. It was time. I had to give it up and I was ready. I'm not going to miss another day.'
In her memoir, the star also revealed she was sexually abused as a child and that the emotional trauma was among the factors that later led to her self-medicating with alcohol and pills. She wrote in her memoir of the day after: 'I slept in, afraid to see them, afraid I had failed them. I hid until they left, then drank.' Ultimately, she said she realized that she was 'killing' herself 'with all the drinking and pills.' 'Giving up the alcohol was easy. I was mad at that bottle. At how it allowed me to stay complacent and numb. Therapy was not as easy. With work, I allowed myself to feel the traumas I'd been through,' she wrote.
Jessica opened up about the abuse by a family friend when she was six years old and how she kept it secret from her parents until she was 12. '(It happened) when I shared a bed with the daughter of a family friend,' Jessica wrote in an excerpt of the memoir published by People. 'It would start with tickling my back and then go into things that were extremely uncomfortable.' Jessica said the abuse started when she was six years old and that she kept it secret for several years. 'I wanted to tell my parents... I was the victim but somehow I felt in the wrong,' Simpson said. She told her parents, Tina and Joe Simpson, six years after the abuse began. The mother of three recalls being in the car with her parents on a trip when she told them about what had happened to her. She remembers her mother slapping her dad's arm and saying: 'I told you something was happening. Dad kept his eye on the road and said nothing,' she said. 'We never stayed at my parents' friends house again but we also didn't talk about what I had said.' It is not clear how long the abuse went on for or if it was an isolated incident.
In August 2024, Jessica denied claims she is drinking again when she addressed a commentator speculating about her sobriety underneath a sweet post for son Ace. After the proud mom boasted about their shared love of scratch-off lottery tickets, a fan accused her of drinking in the comments section, writing, 'STOP DRINKING!' Jessica was quick to respond, asserting that she has been alcohol-free since October 2017. 'I haven't wanted or touched alcohol since October 2017 and it has been the best decision I've made for myself and for my family,' she wrote. 'Thank-you for your concern, but you have me very misunderstood. Sending love your way,' she added.
