When Jennifer Love Hewitt had her whole fat picture scandal, all she was able to score was an Us Weekly cover after shedding a few pounds. But Jessica Simpson's got Papa Joe Simpson on her team, so she gets a fancy June Vanity Fair cover to show off her slim figure.
The fallen pop star has nothing to promote, which makes the cover all the more strange. Sure, she has a lot to talk about—the unflattering mom jeans, constantly forgetting lyrics during her shows, a couple failed movies and a mediocre country career—but none of that is open for discussion in writer Richard Cohen's profile.
So what will she discuss? How mean the mean the media is, obvi.
"When it comes to media criticism, that's just something I have had to train myself—literally train myself—to ignore," she says. "Because I'm the one up there onstage, and I can feel the energy of the crowd. And I know when I did good. And I know when I did great. And there wasn't one time on this tour when I felt like I butchered it. I mean, the way people make it sound, I should have never been singing in the first place."
But like sister Ashlee Simpson says, "Jessica is a fighter," and she's going to fight this injustice by owning an authentic part of herself.
"It comes with what I do," Jess continues. "And I know that every day the media's going to challenge me, is going to want to bring me down. But I feel like I'm at such a place that I own myself, and it's authentic. I own that authentic part of myself, and none of those words are harsh enough to make me believe them...I can't imagine saying some of the things people have said about me about anybody else."
In boy news, there is only brief mention of her Newlywed costar Nick Lachey, (for good reason) of whom she says, "I haven't spoken to him in years." And turns out her current boyfriend, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo, enjoyed the MTV show: "He thought I was cute."
It's good he thinks so, because most Cowboys fans can't stand her, calling her Yoko Romo. Not that the couple pays much attention to that. Jess just deals with it. "That's how the story goes. Can't help it. But we don't let it affect our relationship...I'm always there for him after a game, and he knows he has me to come home to."
There's one more man in her life she enjoys talking about: God. She gets along with him pretty well. "I have a great relationship with God. I can talk to him, get mad at him, frustrated with him," she says.
And that's it. Mean media, Tony Romo and spirituality are the only things the writer is able to get out of Jess. Nothing about the future of her career, which Cohen writes is at "one of those critical junctures, beyond which every possibility, both glorious and obscure, is open."
Will Jessica reinvent herself or fade into oblivion? Considering she's already tried and failed at the reinvention thing, that option is looking less possible, but then Papa Joe doesn't let any of his daughters fade away. So maybe it's safe to say she'll always be around, just popping up whenever she screws up something new.
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