Two stunning rising pop stars, head over heels in love — on paper, an ideal hit. Put them in a fishbowl with the world watching — their very own MTV actuality present known as Newlyweds: Nick & Jessica — and so they had been an endlessly entertaining odd couple. Till they weren’t.
Twenty years after Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey’s divorce turned a popular culture earthquake — which made headlines on Dec. 16, 2005 — Newlyweds nonetheless looms massive as one among actuality TV’s most revealing experiments.
The collection debuted in August 2003, shortly after Lachey, the 98 Levels heartthrob from Cincinnati, married Simpson, the purity-ring-wearing pop princess from Texas, to doc their first 12 months of marriage. It turned an in a single day hit, catapulting them each — particularly Simpson — into megastardom and delivering indelible moments just like the notorious “Rooster of the Sea.”
Because the collection prolonged to a few seasons — audiences couldn’t look away from her burps and his exasperated reactions as they lounged of their front room — it additionally highlighted the couple’s variations. In March 2005, the present ended, and by the tip of the 12 months, their marriage did, too.
Trying again, producers say Newlyweds captured an uncommon intimacy for its time — from offscreen chaos to moments that turned cultural touchstones. These moments nonetheless stay on in memes, information tales and the enduring fascination with early actuality TV, which was unscripted and uncooked in methods immediately’s reveals like Actual Housewives, Mormon Wives and The Kardashians are usually not.
The Osbournes impressed a actuality TV gold rush
After MTV’s The Osbournes — which provided a window into Ozzy and Sharon’s hilarious residence life — turned a runaway success in 2002, networks rushed to present virtually each star their very own actuality present.
“I bear in mind getting calls out of the woodwork with brokers saying, ‘I’ve bought this household. They’re actually humorous,’” Newlyweds and Osbournes govt producer Greg Johnston tells Yahoo. “However I could not do one other family-type present. I believed, ‘It could actually’t stay as much as what we did. I do not wish to even try it.’”
Newlyweds — pitched to market B-level pop stars Simpson and Lachey’s music — bought the greenlight as a result of it provided one thing a bit of totally different.
“It was a younger popular culture couple who had been getting married,” Johnston says. “For me, the story of a pair of their first 12 months of marriage was very attention-grabbing. I hadn’t seen that. Plus, they hadn’t lived collectively earlier than. I believed that may [interest viewers], whether or not they had been celebrities or not.”
Simpson and Lachey selling their new present on TRL in August 2003. (Theo Wargo/WireImage)
The present additionally got here with built-in curiosity in Simpson’s nuptials, fueled by widespread reporting that she was a virgin saving herself for marriage. Whereas that scrutiny feels uncomfortable in hindsight, Simpson lately mirrored on it, saying it “was simply one thing that I talked about,” noting that she had at all times “been open” about her life.
“She was younger,” Johnston says of Simpson, who was 22 when she married Lachey, seven years her senior. “She was very naive. [The Simpsons] had a really tight-knit household. She was a performer, however she was on this bubble.”
Viewers watched her battle attempting to do her laundry, cook dinner and clear for the primary time. Her forte — along with singing, as a result of her third album, In This Pores and skin, blew up when Newlyweds premiered — was extra procuring and designer purses.
“He was kind of the alternative — the macho dude from working-class Cincinnati,” Johnston says of Lachey. “I bear in mind saying, ‘Are you getting movers [to haul his belongings to the couple’s Calabasas, Calif., house when they moved in] and he is like, ‘No, [my brother] Drew and I are going to do it.’”
He provides, “There was this little little bit of the odd couple” vibe.
The start of “Rooster of the Sea”
Todd Stevens was introduced in because the on-set producer for Newlyweds. He has the excellence of being the man who was there when Sharon Osbourne infamously threw a ham over the fence throughout a dispute with the neighbors on The Osbournes — resulting in the police being known as. Stevens was additionally there for Simpson’s tuna confusion.
“That was day one among being in the home,” Stevens tells Yahoo.
Manufacturing started with them capturing journeys with Simpson and Lachey. Then they arrange on the pair’s new residence, mounting cameras all through the home. One digicam was positioned behind the TV and recorded the couple — on their L-shaped sofa — once they watched it.
“It was most likely 9 o’clock at evening, and we had been sitting round pondering: They’re simply making dinner. It has been a protracted day. [Should we go home?]” Stevens says. “We determined we’d simply watch. Then she made the tuna, sat down and when she stated that — asking, “Is that this rooster or is that this fish?” — we checked out one another like: What?! And the look on Nick’s face was simply priceless.”
He provides, “That was the second after I was like: That is going to be good.”
Johnston stated he had no concept the couple can be humorous. The present didn’t hinge on humor — the objective was to seize the realities of newlywed life.
“Todd known as and stated, ‘Hey, did you see the factor the place Jessica … isn’t certain if it is rooster or tuna?’” Johnston remembers. “We ended up transferring it as much as the primary episode.”
To Johnston, Newlyweds “was a bit of little bit of I Love Lucy” meets a contemporary The Honeymooners, although completely unscripted. They solely had a calendar of what the couple had developing, and so they’d tag alongside.
“The primary season is at all times the very best as a result of [the subjects] are usually not as self-aware,” Johnston says. “They have not watched themselves on TV. They have not had critics touch upon what they’re doing. Simpson actually was that means within the first season.”
All that modified when Simpson exploded into stardom after a solo Rolling Stone cowl in November 2003, which she claimed in her 2020 memoir, Open E-book, set off the strain with Lachey. With the highlight now on her, Simpson stepped into the ditzy blonde position.
“In season two, she did attempt to lean into it a bit of bit,” Johnston says. “There have been instances if we sniffed it, we’d go like, let’s not embody that. It appears like she’s attempting.”
Simpson, in 2003, is ceaselessly linked to Rooster of the Sea — and has carried out advertisements for the model as lately as 2024. (Sandy Huffaker/Getty Photographs)
However at first, Stevens says, Simpson was purely herself — together with when she requested if rooster wings had been buffalo meat.
“We had been there from 9 within the morning until midnight — six days every week,” Stevens says. “So that you higher be capable of be your self [for it to work].” And Simpson “was type of ethereal, however it by no means felt contrived — and I imply we had been as shut as you can get.”
When the cameras stopped rolling
What started as an examination of the newlyweds’ first 12 months of marriage developed into three seasons, because of sturdy scores.
By the summer season of 2004, each had been pursuing busy careers outdoors the present, which regularly pulled them in numerous instructions. Simpson’s profile soared after being solid as Daisy Duke within the Dukes of Hazzard remake, filmed in New Orleans that 12 months. In her memoir, she revealed that she started an emotional affair together with her co-star Johnny Knoxville throughout manufacturing, as Lachey appeared to spend extra of his free time on boys’ journeys.
The Newlyweds crew captured some peripheral moments in New Orleans, together with Lachey recording solo music within the studio earlier than, in Steven’s phrases, “the whole lot went south.”
The Dukes of Hazzard got here out in August 2005 — and the pair formally parted methods three months later. (J. Merritt/FilmMagic)
Within the remaining season, “they had been main separate lives,” says Johnston. “It was like pulling enamel to movie them. They did not wish to be filmed. They had been doing their very own issues. We had been similar to: Okay, I feel we’re carried out, as a result of they do not wish to do that anymore, and who is aware of what is going on on within the relationship. We did not wish to develop into paparazzi chasing them down.’”
Stevens says he had no concept issues would disintegrate for the couple.
“Once you do these reveals, you drink the Kool-Help,” he says. “There was no purpose why I believed [their marriage] would not work out, besides the truth that it simply blew up so huge. I bear in mind being chased by eight paparazzi vehicles [in the show’s second season]. It simply bought progressively worse. You’ve got bought folks in Jessica’s ear — her household. You’ve bought folks in Nick’s ear. Then the tabloids.”
Nonetheless, wanting again, the indicators had been there.
“You may see within the present them type of transferring away from one another,” Stevens says. “It is simply unlucky since you surprise: Would which have occurred if there was no present? Would they’ve lasted? I feel they had been simply too younger.”
The enduring enchantment of Newlyweds
By the point the present led to March 2005, Simpson and Lachey had been continuously denying that they had been divorcing, because the tabloids breathlessly tried to hyperlink them to different folks. Studies surfaced in October {that a} divorce was coming, and so they formally introduced their separation over Thanksgiving weekend. Simpson filed for divorce in December, and the wedding was legally over in June 2006.
Lachey and Simpson have each talked loads in regards to the present and their cut up via the years. Her deepest dive was in her memoir. The brief model: She stated the present wasn’t good for his or her marriage. She stated they stopped getting alongside early on as her star rose. She was working nonstop to repay their wedding ceremony and the mortgage on their mansion. Rumors about third events didn’t assist. Neither did watching the present and seeing her then-husband rolling his eyes at her.
Lachey has additionally had his say. Most lately, he referred to having “scars” from his first marriage in an interview final 12 months. In June, he stated he cried when Newlyweds wrapped for good as a result of he was so bonded with the crew.
“Hear, I am simply pleased that the whole lot labored out for each of them,” Stevens says. “He is bought three youngsters now and is fortunately married [to Vanessa Minnillo], and Jessica’s bought her three youngsters [with Eric Johnson, from whom she is separated]. Each appear to have come out effectively. All the things works out nice in the long run.”
Lachey and Vanessa Lachey, whom he married in 2011. (Amy Sussman/Getty Photographs)
This 12 months, Simpson launched her first album in 15 years. Lachey and 98 Levels additionally put out a brand new album, and he hosts Netflix’s Love is Blind with Minnillo.
Each producers later labored with Lachey on actuality specials, whereas Johnston additionally produced Simpson’s sister Ashlee Simpson’s actuality present. At this time, with actuality TV largely within the rear view, they marvel at how the Newlyweds and The Osbournes proceed to be a speaking level 20 years later — and the way they discover new followers alongside the best way via clips being shared on TikTok and memes.
Simpson selling her style model together with her three kids — Ace, Birdie and Maxwell — by her aspect. (Charley Gallay/Getty Photographs for Jessica Simpson Assortment)
“Simply yesterday … a younger girl was like, ‘You probably did Newlyweds?! That was my jam,’” says Johnston. “Her eyes lit up. ‘What’s Jessica like? How about Nick?’”
Stevens provides, “Again then, you actually had no concept what was going to occur. At this time’s actuality reveals have 22-page scripts. It simply doesn’t really feel actual — as a result of it’s not.”
