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Jessica Simpson‘s mother, Tina Simpson, is opening up about how body shaming impacted her daughter. Speaking to Today, Tina explained that the harsh criticism made Jessica want “to hide out” from the world. Seeing her daughter go through such difficult times was the “hardest thing” for Tina as a mother.
"I have to be honest: To me the hardest thing with Jessica has been the weight. Because the way people judge her, it's unbelievable," Tina explained. "Body shaming is a terrible thing, and no girl should have to go through that – or guy. Period."
Tina also pointed to this public scrutiny as a major factor in Jessica's emotional wellbeing. "Because of that, it catapulted all kinds of different emotions and different things in her life too, you know?" she said. "And then it made her want to be a recluse, in a lot of ways, and to hide out and not want to get our of her house."
With this past, Jessica made sure to emphasize body confidence when raising her children. She told ET's Rachel Smith that her history of insecurities made it a crucial aspect of her parenting. "I can label it as insecurity, [but] that doesn't mean that it takes that away. That doesn't mean that I'm all of a sudden cured of insecurity," she explained. "When I was going through it, I had the weight of the world on me and that's heavy."
Instead of focusing on her weight, Jessica now places more emphasis on how she feels.
"I have to rid myself of measuring up to what weight I should be because I've had so many people tell me what weight I need to be. I think it's really about how you feel," she said. "But if you're in the process, it's about sticking with it. It doesn't happen overnight. You have to be patient with yourself, you have to be kind to yourself, you have to love yourself, flaws and all."
She's hoping to raise her daughters to be like her sister, Ashlee Simpson, especially when it comes to confidence-building. "The part of my sister that I've always envied is she is just unapologetically authentic and will take a risk – with fashion or with beauty or whatever – and then it'll become a trend and I'll end up hopping on the bandwagon. It's pretty awesome," Jessica said.
