Jessica Simpson Returns to Stage After 15 Years: ‘I Needed to Remember Who I Was’
Jessica Simpson’s boots were made for walking back onstage for the first time in 15 years. The singer recently launched her comeback with a pair of singles, “Use My Heart Against Me” and “Leave.” She performed both records, plus her renditions of “Son of a Preacher Man” and “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’,” at SXSW on Wednesday night.
“This time I needed to remember who I was and why I wanted to sing in the first place and all the music that inspires me,” Simpson told the audience at the Grammy Block Party before introducing her first song, an unreleased record called “Breadcrumbs. “And I needed to forget who they told me to be.” She also premiered a record titled “Blame Me.”
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Simpson last performed in 2010 for the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting ceremony. The year prior, she opened for Rascal Flatts on the Bob That Head tour. In 2023, the singer told Extra she had plans to “start touring in the next year” to accompany a slate of new music, noting that she had “some of my southern roots back while I am in the recording studio.”
Simpson will release her new EP Nashville Canyon: Part 1 on March 21, her first collection of songs since her 2009 holiday album, Happy Christmas. The project was recorded in the wake of her split from her husband, Eric Johnson. “I got thrown a real twist of fate in the middle of making this record,” Simpson recently told People. “My heart was completely broken. I had to continue to focus on the music. Thank God, I had Nashville.”
She added: “Having this creative outlet, it’s like your heart breaks and you go into a songwriting session — like going straight into therapy. I have always said it was cheesy when people said the music saved my life but it truly saved mine.”
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