Jessica Simpson says she’s still sober, actually — just in case you had any doubts about it, as one Instagram user did when Jessica posted on the platform in celebration of her son’s birthday. On August 5, 2024, Jessica shared a photo of her son Ace to celebrate his 11th birthday. “I’m gonna be a braggin’ Mom for a moment and just say that I have the kindest, most handsome 11yr old son on the planet 💚🦀,” she wrote. “Fun fact: we both find lucky pennies randomly every other week and use them to WIN my scratchers together.”
“Mama loves you Ace Knute Johnson- OH SO VERY MUCH!!!!!!!!” the actress, singer, and business owner concluded.
One Instagram user saw the sweet birthday post as an opportunity to critique Jessica’s lifestyle. “STOP DRINKING!” the Instagram user wrote in a comment that seemed completely unrelated to the post. Regardless, Jessica responded and assured the Instagram user that they’ve clearly misunderstood her.
“I haven’t wanted or touched alcohol since October 2017 and it has been the best decision I’ve made for myself and for my family,” Jessica responded directly to the comment. “Thank. You for your concern, but you have me very misunderstood. Sending love your way.”
Jessica is a mom of three — Birdie Mae, 5, Ace Knute, 11, and Maxwell Drew, 12. She decided to give up alcohol after she couldn’t help her kids get ready on Halloween in 2017. That night, she didn’t help her kids get their costumes ready because she didn’t want them to see the condition she was in, she revealed in her 2020 memoir Open Book
It was then that she realized something had to change.
“I was terrified of letting them see me in that shape,” she wrote in the memoir, describing the condition she was in after going to a party. “I am ashamed to say that I don’t know who got them into their costumes that night.”
At one point, she thought alcohol was helping her — until she realized it was doing the opposite, she explained to Entertainment Tonight in 2020.
“I was disappointed in myself, but I would still pour the drink because I didn’t know how I could make it through,” she told the outlet at the time. “I didn’t know I could be strong enough without it, and really I’m way stronger without and I didn’t realize.
In 2021, she took to Instagram to share a vulnerable post about her sobriety. On the platform, she shared a photo of herself from November 1, 2017, just after she decided to stop drinking.
“This person in the early morning of Nov 1, 2017 is an unrecognizable version of myself,” she wrote at the time.
She went on to say that she couldn’t believe she had already been sober for four years at that point. “It feels like maybe 2,” she said. In the same post, she reflected on how the issues she had to deal with were much deeper than simply giving up alcohol.
“The real work that needed to be done in my life was to actually accept failure, pain, brokenness, and self sabotage,” she wrote at the time. “The drinking wasn’t the issue. I was. I didn’t love myself. I didn’t respect my own power. Today I do.”