There’s been a lot of gossip about the fact that Jessica Simpson has allegedly been supporting her new boyfriend, a former pro football player and grad school dropout named Eric Johnson. In Touch ran a story in last week’s issue (the one that is about to be replaced on the newsstand) including quotes from Johnson’s estranged wife, Keri Johnson, about how he’s broke and is likely freeloading off Jessica. She’s quoted on the record as saying “Eric is plain out of money. He was going to grad school because he didn’t know what else to do, and then he just dropped out. He lived with me until October of last year, but now I think he’s living in her house.” They also included quotes from supposed insiders countering that Eric genuinely cares for Jessica and is not sponging off her, like “He… owns several real estate properties [and] is very romantic and frequently surprises her with candlelit dinners that he has cooked.”
Whatever is going on, Jessica is elated and that’s what matters. She recently told Popsugar in a red carpet interview that she was “feeling great about myself… in a non-arrogant way… there’s a lot of good things that happened this summer that I’m sure you are aware about.” One good thing that Jessica might not be ready to share yet (as hard as it is to believe that there are things she doesn’t share) is an engagement or maybe pending-engagement. Jessica wasn’t wearing a ring on her left hand in that PopSugar interview, but Star claims she has a 3 carat emerald cut engagement ring, that she bought it herself and that she’s telling friends she’s going to marry Eric:
Jessica Simpson is telling her friends that she is going to marry Eric Johnson, even though she’s only been seeing him for a few weeks. She bought herself and [sic] engagement ring! A $50,000 three carat emerald-cut diamond! Eric is worried he’s not financially secure enough to start a future with her, but Jessica wanted to show him that she doesn’t care about that — and she has enough money for them both
[Information from Star via Jezebel]
So is this feminist, naive, or a little of both? In past coverage I’ve called it naive but a lot of you have pointed out that it is perfectly acceptable for a rich woman to support her boyfriend. We don’t bat an eye when it’s a guy supporting a woman. Still, this is Jessica Simpson we’re talking about and if she’s the one pushing an engagement she should be careful to make sure it’s not just her idea and her accelerated timetable. For her sake I hope this guy is sincere and that he’s with her for love.
We ran this photo in our last story on Jessica, and someone pointed out that Jessica is hauling her three bags herself while her boyfriend isn’t carrying one piece of luggage.
She should take the money and spend it on school. That girl could use a brain.
Are you kidding? Everyone accuses a woman of being a gold digger when a rich man supports a woman. People think Oksana deserves Mel’s abuse because she’s a gold digger.
Why does she buy only the ugliest Louis Vuitton?
He looks inbred, so I guess they’re perfect for each other.
He will soon be known as Mr. Jessica Simpson. Wonder if he played a part in picking out the ring? I’ll bet he didn’t know about it.
oh jessica…like many a young girl you get all giggly over the d$ck.
well, news flash…you’re getting a lil’ older now.
old enough to know that great relationships aren’t built around great sex alone!
(i.e. britney, and well… you!)
get out the bed and FOCUS, you.
doh! 🙁
I don’t think this is either feminist or naive.
I think it’s the Star.
I tend to think that I’m very open minded with some feminist leanings.
That being said; if you’re my bf and you make me carry my own luggage when you have none, we’re done.
I think this is another publicity/attention getting stunt. She wouldnt be in the news if it wasnt for her pathetic ‘love life’, what else does she have going for her?
Now their ‘wedding/engagement’ will keep her face in the tabs so maybe she’s looking at it as ‘advertising’?
I also read she paid a dating service thousands of dollars to be set up with him. I guess keeping your name in the news is worth whatever this guy is costing.
I think she is a desperate, pathetic, no talent, brain dead individual.
I just want to be loved…boo hoo hoo.
Two predictions:
She’ll be pregnant before the end of the year, and:
He will be cheating on her before the end of the year.
Didn’t Britney do the same thing and make a fuss about K-Fed presenting her with a 5 carat she bought?
Dumb, dumb.I don’t care who supports whom, but it doesn’t look good for the long term.
The photo above in which she is carrying all of the luggage is proof that he is definitely a free loader. Case closed.
She’s an idiot.
@ ROMA-I AGREE! why they hell doesn’t he help her???
Get that man if you want him, but be smart and get an ironclad prenup.
He sets off a major douche alarm with me. He’s not a gentleman – obviously -and I seriously question his motives for being with her. This guy needs to get a job.
But maybe this is the kind of relationship that will work for Jessica…it seems to work for Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon – so who knows?
it kind of looks like he was going in a different direction to get something and that is why she was pulling the luggage? and, please, im sure we all have had to carry our own luggage or hold it while our partner went to do something…(and if she had to pull it/carry it the whole way, that isnt right–but im assuming something different).
the luggage pic says it all.
Jessica can buy as many rings as she wants, no problem. It’s the rumor that she wants to marry a separated but not yet divorced man after only 3 months of dating that’s weird.
Well not weird for Jessica because that’s how she’s been in every relationship. It feels like the same pattern. Fall in love, hard. Change herself to match her partner and bask in his reflected glory. Declare he’s the one within months (no really, this time it’s true!). Do a People cover where she says she’s more confident and empowered to be herself than she’s ever been because he loves her for who she is (no really, this time it’s true!). Photo ops and TMI with the media to keep her name in the press. Rumors that she’s smothering the guy and he wants out. On and off relationship, weight fluctuations. Lather, rinse, repeat.
I know people say Jessica’s harmless and all that but she’s 30 and constantly wants credit for being confident and owning her own identity when the sad reality is she has no individual identity and she reeks of a lack of self-confidence. It doesn’t feel like she’s learned a thing and that’s hard to respect.
I think maybe this chick wants someone that her father way majorly doesn’t like or the opposite? For some real douche dating Jessica should hook up with Jesse James!
if it was real love, she would be proud to have a simple gold band, that he bought.
If she loves him him, or thinks she does, money won’t and probably shouldn’t matter. She’s got enough to where spoiling herself and her man isn’t going to break her. He might have been straight up with her and advised that he was broke and couldn’t really ‘give her what she deserves’. She might have said ‘I don’t give a poo, you’re moving in!’
Who knows. Fast forward five years from now when they are getting divorced and he’s taking half of her wealth plus alimony, I guess I’ll have to eat these words.
But whatever, if she is happy I say let it be?
I have friends whose husbands are out of a job right now making them the primary bread winner. So what.
aaaaagh I’m so tired of this schlemiel-ette.
Two comments – re: the quote from the supposed “insider” – who the hell says “real estate properties”? Isn’t that kind of redundant?
And secondly, I’m tired of her being touted as some kind of style icon. I read her feature in Lucky Magazine this month (not the first time she’s been featured), and it’s laughable. We only ever see her squeezed into unflattering dresses or wearing muumuus that Mrs. Roper wore back in 1978, with super-ugly, super-high-heeled shoes, and some sort of ridiculous oversized bag. I concur that she buys the ugliest Vuittons – but then again, IMHO, they’re all ugly. They’re what lower-middle-class girls buy when they start to make a little money and want to be “classy.”
Oh, and also, she should have stuck with Nick Lachey.
I’m with #9, #20 and #22. She is a zero-talent airhead who’s obviously desperate and that’s that, even if the ring story isn’t true.
I don’t think it’s about her being the primary breadwinner or having more financially in the bank than he does..that happens all the time and if the relationship is balanced in other ways and both people have the real desire to take care of the other person in the way they are best able to do so, than it works just fine.
With Jess and her Yale guy (if it’s not a publicity stunt..) there is a primary power imbalance regarding money and fame and she doesn’t appear to have the maturity to be handling that dynamic with maturity..
It’s way too soon for her to be putting all her goodies on the table.
The relationship isn’t secure enough or solid enough yet to handle the pressure of the public eye, her needy expectations or what it does to a man’s self esteem to be “kept” before there is any substance to support it.
Dumb little bunny.
But…I did like her cameo on Entourage…:)
Nick Lachey is a dream compared to the losers she has had since their divorce.
As another poster said, the lugage picture says it all.
My first thought was Kevin Federline 2.o. You can say a woman that makes more money can take care of him and it’s no big deal…but when that woman is famous and people are calling him Mr. Jessica Simpson he may feel a little emasculated.
she is just too damn desperate, like having a man will end all of her problems, its sad..
to the poster that said Nick Cannon and Mariah are like this, how crazy you sound, Nick Cannon has millions and had millions before he got w/Mariah–yeah she has more but he is not heel by a long shot. He is being paid by Nickelodeon as we speak, he is over his own branch of productions there..not to mention other royalities from his past comedy shows.
geesh, get it straight, Nick Cannon is NO where near broke–he bought a million dollar engagement ring for a previous fiancee before Mariah was stumbling and slurring around him.
i bat an eye when a man supports a woman. if it’s not an equal relationship. its not the money that matters, it’s the relationship dynamic that matters. and the fact that this girl – who has a crap romantic track record – is supposedly talking engagement after a few weeks – and this guy dropped out of a good school – red flags, red flags. what eden said.
Melanie, you took the words straight out of my mouth. Brittney and KFed part 2.
and Marjalane, I would put money on your predictions if everything continues.
I used to have a lot of venom for Simpson and her ilk back in high school. Now, I don’t know. . . I almost feel sorry for the poor girl. She’s dumb as a rock and desperate for a man, and that’s no way to go through life, sister.
It’s just so sad that this woman (she’s already too old to be called a girl anymore) feels that she can’t be without a man for any period of time. She just jumps from one relationship into another without taking any time to find herself and develop her own personality. For all we know, maybe this guy is Mr. Right for her, but she really needs to slow the relationship train down and wait until they’ve been together two years before talking engagement. Other than Nick, I don’t think she’s ever had a relationship last a year yet. I sense serious daddy issues are responsible for her love life.
I agree with so many of you. This is a clear-cut “spite Daddy.”
“if it was real love, she would be proud to have a simple gold band, that he bought.”
my thoughts exactly. too many women get caught up in the ring! and the dress! and being a pretty princess for a day! my grandmother (original granny) told me “remember, the wedding is just one day, but the marriage is for a lifetime. choose carefully.”
mr. original kate & i are not planning on marriage so i don’t have a diamond ring, but he has given me lovely, thoughtful gifts that mean more to me than any diamond ever could. and he would never let me carry anything while he went empty-handed. additionally, he always opens doors for me, lets me take the chair if there is only one, and he ran to the drugstore to buy tampons during my ladytime. jessica needs to get her priorities straight.
what a douchebag. he cant even take care of himself. what a disgrace to men all over
I concur! What a douchebag! and he even has a doucheface! Her left slogging with the luggage says it all to me. That poor girl is dumb dumb dumb. She needs to read Dr. Laura’s excellent book 10 Stupid Things Women Do To Screw Up Their Lives. I think Jess regularly does all 10.
Bella Mosley: I agree with you.
i think she is being very smart. she did her research and found the type of man who would stay with her despite her girth which will only increase after some of his babies are cut out of her – cute but poor and willing to be bought. and now she’s buying him. sure it reeks of low self-esteem but if her only agenda is to have the type of man who will stick around for a price, then she’s gone about it the right way.
My man is in a metal band and doesn’t make anything for money (when they’re not touring), I make twice as much as he does. I have my master’s, he is a college drop-out. I have a new car, he has a skateboard.
And yet never in a million years would I not be content with anything he gave me. I would never buy myself a ring just to “prove” the discrepancy doesn’t bother me. Because it genuinely doesn’t.
He could get me a cheap-ass ring from a gum-ball machine and I would wear it and love the hell out of it. But he still wouldn’t do that; he would take the time and save some money and buy me a little, modest ring and I would love the hell out of that too, and be damn proud of it… and of him!
Because he is my man; he holds open doors for me, pulls out my chair, pays his half of the rent on time… AND carries my luggage (Jessica, I am looking at you!) He treats me/my family/my friends with respect, makes me laugh, gives me orgasms, and he is a gentleman through and through.
Fuck this Eric Johnson.
She should try to get back with Nick.
He looked like he was the only one that really love her, even if sometimes he had this I cant believe I marry someone this dumb look in his face.
Even if he took a couple of millions from her when they divorce , that was her fathers fault for telling her to not get a prenup because Nick back them was the bigger star with more money than her.
Leave the poor Jess alone. The media coverage of Jessica’ relationships are always negative. Why is that? They make money off of smearing her relationships. She’s the girl next door, so everyone follows her relationships. Back off media! You’re going to ruin this one for her too? You’re going to pressure the guy with all the gossip rag scrutiny? Who cares if she paid a dating service for match making. I’m sure the investment was worth it; otherwise, the headlines would still be going on and on about how heart broken she must be over Tony Romo dumping her and practically living with the new girlfriend. Play nice people…
What a Loser!
I can’t believe almost 45 people believe Star Magazine. I’m embarrassed for all of you.
Haha, good point Karen!
But you know what, I would believe this story if it was written on a bathroom stall at Walmart. Why? Because it is about Jessica Simpson desperately clinging to a chance at love.
IF they do end up getting married, It WILL end in divorce.
Jessica was not willing to work on her marriage to Nick, so why would she be willing to work on a marriage to Eric?