Ashlee Simpson wanted to pave her own way as a young star, which included rejecting her dad’s attempt to gift her a purity ring.
“I think [when I was] younger, too, I would come off way more rebellious than I was,” Simpson, 39, recalled during the Monday, February 19, episode of the “Broad Ideas” podcast. “Because I was like, ‘Oh no, I’m not doing that.’”
The former pop star noted that she saw how her parents raised big sister Jessica Simpson and didn’t want to follow directly in her footsteps. Jessica, now 43, famously wore a purity ring as a teen, abstaining from sex until she married first husband Nick Lachey in 2002. (She is now married to Eric Johnson.)
“I would see how my dad would be like, ‘You can’t talk to this guy.’ [Or like], ‘Here’s your ring to save yourself,’” Ashlee explained, referring to her dad, Joe Simpson’s efforts for both of his daughters to save themselves for marriage.
Ashlee — who got into music at a young age like her sibling — revealed that her dad “tried to give me one at 12 and I was like, ‘Oh, no thank you. I will [not] be telling you when I am having sex.’”
Ashlee told podcast cohosts Rachel Bilson and Olivia Allen that even without the purity ring, she didn’t have sex until she was 17. “I always wanted it to be open that you don’t know what I’m doing,” she teased.
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The “Pieces of Me” singer, who is four years younger than Jessica, added that her mom, Tina Simpson, was aware that she needed a different set of rules growing up.
“My mom really would pay attention and see me if I needed something different,” Ashlee said, sharing that she was “an independent soul” as a kid. “I wanted to do my own thing. They had to let me be free … or at least feel free,” she added.
While Ashlee kept her personal life close to the vest as a teen, she has since become an open book. Her openness is something she said she wants to pass along to her kids, especially her oldest child, son Bronx.
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“It’s so interesting having a 15-year-old,” she said of her son, whom she shares with ex-husband Pete Wentz, noting that the mother-son pair have an “open” dialogue about sex. “[To] have those open conversations, I feel like it’s so important. [Anything] other than that, your kids are going to be hiding things from you,” Ashlee said. “Or you won’t get the story.”
Ashlee also shares daughter Jagger, 8, and son Ziggy, 3, with husband Evan Ross, whom she wed in 2014.
