Ah, Jessica Simpson, the deepest of depths. Though there’s a bit of debate regarding her stupidity – or regarding her intelligence, depending on how you want to frame the question (Joe Simpson once claimed in a Vanity Fair article that Simpson had an IQ of 160). Either InStyle magazine rephrased her answers or somehow gave her a shot of smart serum (okay maybe just less-dumb-than-regular serum) but she actually came off as reasonably intelligent in an article they wrote about her. They asked her about love and dealing with heartbreak, and Simpson responded in a way that made her seem relatively optimistic and pretty normal.

Love hasn’t always been kind to Jessica Simpson – even since her divorce from Nick Lachey – but the singer and actress says there’s something empowering about the disillusionment that comes with heartbreak.

“I’ve had my heart broken since my divorce,” Simpson, 27, tells InStyle for its November issue, perhaps referring to her relationship with John Mayer, which ended in June. “That’s OK. I believe you fall in love more than once and get your heart broken more than once. Trust me, I have cried myself to sleep.”

Simpson says she once felt like “the princess in the fairy tale – then reality came crashing in, and I learned that isn’t always how life works.”

Still, in the bigger picture, that may be a valuable lesson to learn. Nowadays, Simpson says, “I am in complete control of my life.”

[From People]

It’s kind of silly, but it makes me feel a little better to know that even pretty, rich, and famous like Jessica Simpson has cried herself to sleep. Simpson also talked about her relationship with her younger sister Ashlee, and the advantages they each get from the relationship.

In the InStyle piece, Simpson answers questions from friends and family. When sister Ashlee asks what she likes most about having a younger sister, Jessica says it’s that they can lean on each other. “I go to my sister for advice all the time, mostly about guys, life or how to deal with an argument with Mom or Dad,” she says. “You’d think she was older. I had to go through life first, and she saw the choices I made, good or bad. She can look at my life and be, like, ‘OK, I’m not gonna do it this way.’ I might be a little more jaded, but it’s exciting for me to see her making good choices.”

[From People]

It does seem like Ashlee makes better choices that Jessica. Not that Jessica made terrible decisions; it’s not like you see her out drinking and snorting coke every night like a lot of celebutards. But she did marry her first boyfriend pretty young, and I would imagine for a lot of people – after the honeymoon period wore off – you’d want to know what else was out there. I think that would only be compounded by living in Hollywood and having so much temptation around. Ashlee’s dated several guys and generally lived more of life in general, and has yet to settle down, so I’d guess that’s a result of seeing how unhappy it made her sister.

Picture note by Jaybird: Here’s Jessica at the Operation Smile 25th Anniversary Gala on October 5th. Images thanks to PR Photos.