Simpson sisters steal the spotlight

Joe Simpson: ”I was serious about saying to Jessica that I’m going to be the dad that holds your hand, I’m going to be the dad that tells you how beautiful you are everyday and I’m going to be the dad that says even when you make a mistake you’re still special.”

And he sure seemed focused on Jessica's success. Buster Soaries was a Baptist minister with his own small Christian music label when Joe and Jessica approached him about getting Jessica started in the contemporary Christian circuit.

Soaries signed 14-year-old Jessica to a deal with his label, Proclaim Records. When he took her to an annual Baptist youth convention in Dallas, the results were mixed. The kids who heard her sing at reunion arena that weekend were enthusiastic. Some of the adults raised questions about another performance by Jessica, at the event turned into a music video. Soaries says she sang a song about abstinence, but there were a few people who resented the fact that someone who looked so secular would be at a Christian event.

Soaries says there were more incidents like that and his backers decided Jessica wasn't right for the Christian market.

Buster Soaries: “I think the rejection, and that's really what it was. The rejection of the Christian music industry, of Jessica Simpson, forced Joe and Jessica to go in a direction that said ‘We’re going to maintain our values.  But we're not going to limit ourselves to this industry that doesn't have a vision for who Jessica can be."

So Jessica and her dad tried their luck in the mainstream pop world. Her first album, “Sweet Kisses,” came out in 1999, around the time she got her G.E.D. But the album didn't really set Jessica apart. She watched from the sidelines while her Mouskateer nemesis climbed the charts.

So Joe and Jessica kept making the rounds and meeting the right people, like Carson Daly, then the host of MTV's Total Request Live. Back then Jessica was just an opening act, for the rising boy band 98 Degrees, featuring Nick Lachey.

Daly: “Nick who was the singer for 98 degrees which sold like 10 million copies musically speaking he was up here and she was sort of here.”

Nick and Jessica started a hot romance. Well, not that hot. Jessica announced she planned to stay a virgin till she married. Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey had their white wedding in October 2002. For all the domestic bliss, Jessica's career was flagging. Her second album had sold only about a third as many copies as her first.

But Jessica and her father, Joe had a plan. Rather than just marketing her music, they'd try to sell her whole life, documenting her new marriage to Nick before MTV's cameras.  Who could have known how a show called "The Newlyweds" would change everything for Jessica Simpson, how very soon, she'd find a goldmine in a tuna can.

In the Summer of 2003, Jessica Simpson was stuck on the pop music B-list. Her third album "In This Skin" was released to mediocre reviews and modest sales. But then the MTV reality show "The Newlyweds" went on the air. With Nick and Jessica starring as themselves, or some version of themselves, the newlyweds gave us romance. It gave us lovers spats. But mostly it gave us the uninhibited Jessica Simpson -- and a series of sweet, daffy, memorable Jessica moments.

Finally Jessica and her father Joe had found a vehicle to showcase the lovable ditzy blonde. The show surged to number 1 on all of basic cable. But some viewers started to wonder, were they watching a spacey young wife making daffy comments to her exasperated husband, or a performance of a spacey young wife making daffy comments to her exasperated husband?

Some of Jessica's old friends go so far as to say she belongs in the grand tradition of first class screwball comedy. When we showed The Newlyweds to a real live film critic, he didn't know quite what to make of it.

Jessica got an even kinder review from 7-year-old Henry Barrett, an actor in independent films and theater. When we met, he was preparing with his 2nd grade class for a production of Shakespeare's “The Tempest.” Henry seemed impressed by Jessica's skills as a comedy actress.

And the public interest in Jessica and her love for "that man" extended to the reality that lies outside reality TV. It was a heady time for Jessica Simpson. After only 10 episodes of “The Newlyweds,” Jessica had captured the stardom that had eluded her. Most records sag after a few weeks on the charts, but Jessica's album "In This Skin" was shooting upwards.

Meanwhile, at Chicken of the Sea headquarters, officials were learning Jessica's P.R. Secret.

Company officials sent Jessica two big cases of tuna to thank her for her unusual endorsement. Joe Simpson called them up right away, offering to draw out this public relations bonanza a bit longer. So three months after she made her infamous remark on “The Newlyweds,” Jessica showed up for a meeting at company headquarters to meet the tuna giant's sales representatives and even give them a little show.

And if America loved her for her little faux pas, why not make more of them? Her misstatements, both on and off the air, were becoming legendary. Saying something really dumb was now "pulling a Jessica."

Justin Timberlake, yes that's Britney's ex, did a fine Jessica impression on Saturday Night Live. Apparently, Jessica didn't mind being the national idiot laureate. She was embracing her inner airhead, even capitalizing on it. But when you stop and think about it, maybe some of her most famous stupid statements aren't really so stupid after all. While we're on the subject, how many people know anything about the platypus, let alone how you pronounce it.

As Jessica and Nick prepared for “The Newlyweds” second season, her mother Tina told Vanity Fair that Jessica had once scored 160 on an I.Q. test, making her eligible for the prestigious international high I.Q. Society, Mensa.

Jim Blackmore: “I think it's totally fabricated.”

Kotb: “So this is all like a thing, the master genius, Jessica has figured out.”

Blackmore: "I think it's publicity hype.”

And if you watch “The Newlyweds” closely, you may catch her slipping out of the dumb blonde persona on occasion, reading a book and sometimes even showing off her big vocabulary. You don't hear Britney Spears using the word facetious. Anyway, Mensa officials are hoping Jessica Simpson will get in touch.

And if Jessica in Mensa still sounds farfetched, consider this: By early 2004, just a year after her career seemed stalled, she'd pulled off a dazzling feat most Mensa members would never dream of, becoming one of America's most popular, most recognized pop singers without ever having a single number one song.

Alternative rocker Adam Green, whose albums were only selling a few thousand copies, found it all pretty annoying. so annoying in fact, he wrote his own song about her. The lyrics are a little strange, but the tune's so catchy, Jessica may wish she recorded it herself.

Adam Green started getting airplay on MTV, for the first time ever. But before long he jumped off the Jessica gravy train. Now he says he's over the whole Jessica Simpson thing.

Adam Green: “I know it may be hard for you guys to believe, but the focus of my life is not knocking Jessica Simpson. It’s just something I did for five minutes just to be cool.”

For her part, Jessica Simpson never seems to worry much about being cool. She did an infomercial for an acne project. In early 2004, Jessica launched a line of lickable cosmetics and promoted them with an appearance on QVC.

Uncool? Maybe, but in one hour she raked in almost a cool million. A year earlier, pre “Newlyweds,” she couldn't even make that much on a whole concert tour. And believe us, Jessica has a keen understanding of how her on air persona drives up her market value. As “The Newlyweds “second season got underway, Jessica released a new song and a new music video to go with it.

The lyrics were about her love for Nick, the visuals were all about her cute little slip ups from “The Newlyweds,” eating Chicken of the Sea from the can, munching on buffalo wings and wearing a T-shirt that read “platamapus.”

Daly: “It made a connection between Jessica Simpson the person that you're now talking about at work for the dumb stuff she says, etc.. And the music that she sings. Which needed a bit of an adrenaline shot.”               

Talk about smart marketing -- Finally, a Jessica Simpson song made it to the top of the charts. Jessica Simpson was sitting pretty. But that's not the end of the family's story. A younger, edgier Simpson was waiting in the wings.

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