In Memoriam of Ashlee Simpson’s Career

Ten years ago this week, Ashlee Simpson destroyed all of the good faith she had built up with her reality show, The Ashlee Simpson Show, by appearing on Saturday Night Live and overtly lip-syncing “Pieces of Me.” It was the “acid reflux side effect” heard round the world, resulting in many verbal lashings and speculations as to whether or not any of her talent was real.

In the wake of her October 23rd performance, Simpson was universally panned in a world that still hadn’t even discovered the beneficial shit-talking power of Twitter. Blaming the incident at first on her band, and then being forced to backpedal and admit to intentionally lip-syncing, Simpson used her recent bout with acid reflux as the reason for needing to rely on a backing track.

Mercifully, Simpson had already released her debut album to impressive sales (400,000 in the first week), so no one could take that away from her. But the aftermath of SNL-gate proved to have more career-ruining effects than, say, Lana Del Rey, who also suffered an extreme backlash after her performance on the same show. But at least Simpson had the good sense to get some plastic surgery and essentially change her identity.