New York Times Loves Recovery –

Jan. 29, 2020 – When Jessica Simpson walks into a room you’re surprised by three things. The first, and they warn you about this — they say all celebrities are, but trust me, you can’t really wrap your brain around it until you are staring down at a strip of white scalp, bending a mile to give a perfunctory hug hello — is that she is very short. (Google says she is 5-foot-3, her publicist says 5-foot-4, my eyeballs estimate she’s maybe 5-foot-2.)

(She is also very beautiful. I remember reading in Amy Poehler’s book, “Yes Please,” that Jessica Simpson was one of the prettiest people Ms. Poehler had seen without makeup, and that tracks.)

Two, she has a warmth to her. It could be the natural nest builder of a 39-year-old mother of three (two daughters, Maxwell Drew, 7, and Birdie Mae, 10 months; one son, Ace Knute, 6); it could be that she spent more than half of her life earning fans and knows how to turn it on; it could be the small-town Texan-ness she wears like a badge of honor; or it could be the fleshy, raw glow of something recently defrosted.

@NYTimes