Jessica Simpson Shares How She Stays Kind to Herself for Her Kids

Jessica Simpson opened up about how she approaches beauty and self-worth and recently shared how she works to stay kind to herself while setting a positive example for her children.

“I’m definitely hard on myself. I’m not as hard as the world is on me. But I’m hard on myself,” Simpson, 45, said in an interview with Elle published on Thursday, April 2.

“If I allow all of those judgments and opinions to define my self-worth, it means that I’m going to be giving that to my children,” she explained.

The Dukes of Hazzard star shares daughters Maxwell Drew, 13, and Birdie Mae, 7, along with son Ace Knute, 12, with her estranged husband, Eric Johnson.

“I never let my kids hear me say derogatory things about myself,” Simpson continued. “I try really hard to bite my tongue if I’m feeling a moment of weakness, like if I’m feeling fat or gross. I try as much as I can to keep it to myself. I don’t want them beating themselves up or looking at me and thinking that they have to be like me.”

The “With You” singer is no stranger to unsolicited remarks about her body, and she previously admitted that she felt like her role as Daisy Duke in The Dukes of Hazzard caused people to be able to zero in on her specifically.

“It created a gold standard Jessica, the ‘before’ for every ‘Is she fat or is she thin?’ story for the rest of my career,” Simpson wrote in her 2020 memoir Open Book.

In 2009, conversation about her looks exploded when she wore high-waisted jeans with a black tank top when she performed at the 99.9 Kiss Country 24th Annual Chili Cook Off in Florida. She became the topic of headlines criticizing her weight, but Simpson later revealed that she was only 120 pounds and a mere size 4 at the time.

“I don’t think people always realized that there was a human being, a beating heart and working eyes with actual feelings behind those headlines and that words can hurt and stay with you for a lifetime,” she told People in 2021.

However, in her Elle interview, Simpson said “it’s all about perspective.”

“If I’m having conversations with myself, journaling, and loving the heart of who I am — that comes out,” she said. “It comes through my eyes and my skin and the way that I present myself. That self-work that we do with ourselves is probably the most important thing we can do.”