Love can hurt, no matter how rich, famous, perky or pretty you are.
For instance, it was the opposite of easy for Jessica Simpson to see estranged hubby Nick Lachey romancing other women just weeks after their 2005 breakup.
"Oh, it hurt me," the 26-year-old pop star says in an interview in Elle magazine's March issue. "Two or three weeks later? Yeah, I'd say it kind of hurt me."
Simpson filed for divorce on Dec. 16, 2005, after three years of high-profile matrimony, with the split becoming official last June. Soon after the couple gratified all those pessimistic tabloids out there, Lachey was spotted out and about with Kristin Cavallari of Laguna Beach fame.
While theirs was a brief coupling, enough pictures were taken to really hammer the whole "Nick & Jessica are over" point home. Lachey is currently dating MTV host Vanessa Minnillo, who also appeared in the video for "What's Left of Me," the title song off the former boy bander's latest solo album.
A Newlywed no longer, Simpson has been seen canoodling at various locales with John Mayer, whose camp downplayed the hookup a while back but is now letting nature take its course. But where that course is headed is anyone's guess.
"I want to tell you everything, but I have to sew my lips together," Simpson said. "It's hurt me in the past."
The Dukes of Hazzard star, no stranger to loose lips and sunken ships, did not particularly object, however, when the reporter interviewing her suggested that one day, because of this newly imposed veil of secrecy surrounding Simpson's private life, we're all going to wake up one day and read that the actor-singer has tied the knot again. She also admitted to being "so happy right now."
"I let people in on who I am and how I react to my husband," Simpson said, referring to the MTV reality series she and Lachey participated in for a year and a half. "That's a big deal. Celebrities don't do that. So, I think [the tabloids] brought me down just because I stopped talking and because I have not spoken—and will not speak—about my divorce. And I think people feel like I owe them my reality right now."
Simpson did have this to offer about her divorce: She was inspired to move on with her life after catching the long-lost-romance drama The Notebook during a plane ride from Los Angeles to Waco, Texas, to visit her grandparents.
While the world can't directly blame Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams for the couple's demise, Simpson took the film's message to heart.
"I just figured out the statement," she said. "It was about that moment of desperation. I needed to breathe."
Many breaths later, Simpson appears to have moved past the scrutiny, and she's looking toward the future. A future that also includes Lachey, who she's still in touch with.
"He's so much a part of my life, how could I not be?" Simpson said. "Any guy who's going to be with me from this day forward has to understand that."
But when asked if she's in love again, the fresh-faced divorcée would only respond with a demure "I didn't say yes."