Jessica Simpson says she turned down Rachel McAdams’ role in The Notebook because of the Ryan Gosling sex scene

Though she opens up about many aspects of her life in her brand new memoir Open Book, we can’t help but get a little hung up on what life would have been like if Jessica Simpson were cast as Allie in The Notebook instead of Rachel McAdams. According to Simpson’s book, she was initially offered the role but ultimately turned it down because of *that* sex scene.

Simpson writes that the sex scene with Gosling would have been hard to get through because she had been crushing on him for a long time beforehand. The pair met when Simpson was just 12 years old during the auditions for The Mickey Mouse Club House. And she admits that Gosling was her first “hard crush.”

“I was in love,” she writes. “Before anybody knew how hot Ryan Gosling was going to become, I had a vision.”

Rachel McAdams was cast as the Allie to Gosling’s Noah, and the rest is history. (Including their now-iconic MTV Movie Award acceptance moment for Best Kiss.) But Simpson says that not long after she turned the role down, she was tortured by her decision. In 2006, she says she was on a flight and had just issued a statement announcing her divorce from husband Nick Lachey.

No offense to Ryan Gosling—Simpson just couldn’t handle the awkwardness. And TBH, we’re not too sure we could have handled that awkward situation either, no matter how much of a crush on Ryan Gosling we have.