Nick & Jessica: Inside the Split
After three years of marriage, Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey call it quits.
Friends and family tell what went wrong – and what lies ahead for the former
Newlyweds.



"I think their lives were pulling them in different directions, and they kind of
had different ideas of what their marriage should be," a source close to Lachey
says of the couple (last year).

There were aunts and uncles, parents and grandparents, plus plenty of
potatoes and pie to go around. But at the Simpson family Thanksgiving
celebration in Waco, Texas, on Nov. 24, there was one notable absence: Nick
Lachey, whose split from wife Jessica had been announced just one day earlier.
"We were sad he wasn't there – we missed him," Jessica's uncle Gary Simpson told
PEOPLE. "He is a good guy and we all liked him. We were sorry he wasn't part of
the group. There was an empty place."

Despite the still-raw breakup, his niece "is holding up fine," he adds. "She's
going to be okay. I know it must be rough on her, but she's doing good."
Surfacing three days after the Thanksgiving festivities, the newly single
Simpson betrayed no hint of heartache. "She looked great," says an observer at
South Beach Tan, a tanning salon in Studio City, Calif., where Simpson – minus
her wedding band – and a female pal showed up on Nov. 27. "One of the employees
asked her how her Thanksgiving was, and she said, It was beautiful.' She was
almost chipper."



“They had an argument on Wednesday (Nov. 23), and that was the final straw,”
says a source close to Simpson (above, with her grandmother Dorothy in Texas on
Nov. 26). But a source close to Nick says it happened a day earlier, when “she
said to him, ‘We’re done.’”

Perhaps she was simply steeling herself for the brewing storm. Almost
immediately after Simpson, 25, and Lachey, 32, announced their split in a
politely worded Nov. 23 statement – "This is the mutual decision of two people
with an enormous amount of respect and admiration for each other" – friends of
both stars began choosing sides, lobbing accusations in both directions.

The two camps offer different explanations for what went wrong and when. While
Simpson's camp says that she was fed up with her husband's partying ways and his
refusal to join her family in Texas for Thanksgiving, and that the pair decided
to split after an argument the day before Thanksgiving, Lachey's side tells a
different story.

One source close to Lachey says that following dinner with pals at an L.A.
eatery on Nov. 22, Simpson blindsided her husband on the car ride home. "She
said, 'I don't know if this is working. I want to file for divorce,'" says the
source. "He was shocked. Nick was saying, 'There are things we can do to work on
this, and isn't this worth fixing?' And the answer was no."

The next day, say several sources close to Lachey, Simpson asked if Lachey would
still join her family in Texas. He refused, and the couple issued the statement
confirming their split. "I know for a fact there wasn't one event that brought
it about," says another source close to Lachey. "I think it was a general
growing apart, as in most marriages. It's very rare that it's just one thing
that causes people to break up. It's usually over time a slow growing apart."


"He had planned to go to Texas with her for Thanksgiving, but then she said
they were going to separate," so Nick (above, with pal A.J. DiScala and brother
Drew Lachey Nov. 20) decided not to, says a source close to Nick. Her side says
he didn't want to go.


In the ensuing days, the initial high tensions appeared to soften a bit.
"They've spoken over the last few days," says a source close to Simpson. "The
fact that they're talking is a good sign." Still, as the impact of the split
settled in, the couple whose young marriage launched them both into superstardom
with the success of their MTV reality show Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica were left
to grapple with their new, separate realities. "We love them both," says
Lachey's mother, Cate Reinert. "It's a difficult time."

In fact, the last year has been a trying one for the pair, who spent much of
their time away from each other – she was in Louisiana filming The Dukes of
Hazzard, he was often in Sweden recording his upcoming album – and had to endure
rumors of infidelity (emphatically denied by both).

Then there was Simpson's now-you-see-it, now-you-don't wedding band and the
couple's third anniversary on Oct. 26, which they spent several continents
apart, with Lachey in L.A. and Simpson doing charity work in Africa. Their last
public outing as a couple, at a Nov. 16 party at Hollywood club LAX, also fueled
talk of a split. "Justin [Timberlake] at one point was making fun of Jessica
because she was sitting with her arms folded toward Nick, kind of scowling at
him," says an observer. "He was imitating her, like, 'What's up with that?' "

And yet despite all the speculation, friends on both sides say that the official
word of a breakup still came as a jolt. "It kept being reported as if they'd
split, and they hadn't," says Jimmy Swan, a longtime friend of the Simpson
family. "This really was new."


Oct. 26, 2002 – After a four-year courtship, the pair wed at a chapel in Austin,
Texas, before 350 friends and family. Lachey serenaded his bride with a song he
wrote, "My Everything."
Up until the announcement, the couple had not only steadfastly denied every
new report of marital strife, but they continued to sound like, well, a couple
of newlyweds on the subject of their marriage. Speaking to People on his recent
anniversary, Lachey seemed as smitten as ever. "I wrote a long letter and hid it
in her suitcase and made sure she found it today," he said. "You make the other
person feel special because it's easy to lose track." He also noted that the
couple's recent getaway to Italy provided a much-needed respite: "It was nice to
spend some time together."

A source close to Simpson says that the Italy trip "reminded Jessica of what a
wonderful relationship she had away from the press, away from her friends, away
from his friends." And yet this source says that any lingering vacation
afterglow was killed within 24 hours of their return to L.A., when Lachey joined
close pal A.J. DiScala, 34, himself newly separated from his actress wife,
Jamie-Lynn Sigler, in Las Vegas.

Combined with Lachey's trip to Miami Nov. 18-21, where he hit hot spots Mynt and
the Setai with DiScala, "it really upset her that she was at home by herself
with the dog and he is with single guys partying," says the Simpson source. "She
wondered, 'Do I have to follow you around to clubs to make you happy?' She
doesn't like that world. Her idea of a great night is to order Chinese food and
ice cream and watch movies."


"[Jessica] said, 'I don't know if this is working. I want to file for divorce'
" – A source close to Lachey

But those close to Lachey offer a nearly opposite version of events. They say
that in fact Simpson had originally been scheduled to join her husband at
appearances both in Miami and Vegas, and that he was honoring those prior
commitments. Further, the other source close to Lachey says that it was her
clubhopping, not his, that caused friction. "Nick is a little bit older than
Jess, and he was ready to be more domesticated than Jessica is," says the
insider. "I think she still enjoyed the Hollywood lifestyle."

When the pair met at the Hollywood Christmas Parade in 1998, Simpson was an
18-year-old popster deeply in the shadow of Britney Spears and Christina
Aguilera, and Lachey was riding the boy band wave with his group 98Ί. Outspoken
about her virginity, the Texas-bred Simpson – whose father is a former Baptist
minister – instantly hit it off with the Ohio-reared Lachey, whom friends say is
the more outgoing of the two.

And yet after their lavish 2002 wedding, Simpson emerged as the breakout star,
parlaying her sweetly ditzy Newlyweds charm into a one-woman industry that
currently encompasses fashion, beauty, movies and music. "I think Nick liked it
much better when he was protecting Jessica and nurturing her," says a source
close to Simpson. Counters one source close to Lachey: "Every step of the way in
her success, Nick was by her side. He wants nothing more than for her to
succeed."

Now it seems Simpson and Lachey will set out to succeed on their own separate
terms. Both have upcoming solo albums as well as other projects in the works.
And yet even as they begin the tedious, painful process of disentangling their
lives – Simpson has been staying at her parents' house in L.A. while Lachey
remains at the couple's Calabasas, Calif., home – those who know them do not
rule out a reconciliation. "Nick very much loves his wife," says a source close
to Lachey, "and doesn't want to get divorced."


Jessica's parents, Joe and Tina Simpson, and sister Ashlee joined the couple
at the Dukes premiere in July. Her big sister "is going through a hard time
right now," says Ashlee.


It was no secret that Joe Simpson disapproved of the union from the start.
"Everybody thought, including my father, that my marriage to Nick would kill my
career," Jessica told 20/20 last year. At the wedding, said her mother, Tina,
"Joe was just miserable." Simpson's spirits lifted considerably as Nick and
Jessica catapulted to superstar status on Newlyweds, which he
executive-produced.

Attending nearly every shoot, concert and vacation the couple went on, the
47-year-old minister turned manager (who declined comment for this article)
stayed close to Jessica. Perhaps too close. "No matter how nice your in-laws
are, it must have been really hard to have them a constant presence," says
family friend Lynn Zednick Shaw.
While one source close to the couple insists that "the big feud between Nick and
Joe ... was played up by MTV to make Newlyweds more interesting," other friends
say Simpson's omnipresence irritated Nick. "He controls Jessica's life and
therefore has controlled Nick's life," says a source. "I'm not saying they don't
have problems, but Nick loves Jessica. I'm telling you, it's Joe."


Hollywood Dirt | Only Jessica









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