Once upon a time, a pop princess cracked wise about a dream in which she married NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt Jr. That pop princess was Jessica Simpson, whom his then-girlfriend—now wife—Amy Earnhardt later barred from the bus of her race car driving Prince Charming. Truth really is stranger than fiction.
Earnhardt shared the story during a conversation about the incident, joking that Simpson once “tried to fish my man.” My, what tangled webs we weave—especially when you’re famous.
“It’s 2008, maybe [2009]. We had just started dating, and I think I’m still living in Jacksonville, but I come up to Daytona to hang out with Dale. And I hear that Jessica Simpson’s at the racetrack. We’re the same age. We both came from Texas, so I’ve always kind of been a fan of hers,” Amy recounted on her Bless Your ’Hardt podcast.
At the time, Amy felt thrilled about possibly meeting one of her favorite musical artists. That excitement, however, did not last.
“And I’m like, ‘Hey, Dale, do you think that you could get Jessica Simpson to come to the bus so I could meet her?’ And he’s like, ‘I don’t think that’d be a really good idea.’ And I was like, ‘Why not?’” she continued. “And he shows me this clip … of her doing an interview earlier that day, how she had had a dream that she and Dale Jr. got married in a treehouse.”
The future Mrs. Earnhardt quickly changed her mind about meeting Simpson on the bus. “And I’m like, ‘Yeah… don’t bring that b---- over here. It’s a good idea,’” Amy said as Dale laughed. That interview made an impression on Amy that she still carries to this day.
“I haven’t bought a Jessica Simpson shoe or a bag—you know, how she’s got all the things—ever since then. I was like, she was f---ing trying to fish my man … Yes, she was. She knew exactly what she was doing,” Amy added later in the episode.
The incident unfolded in the late 2000s, when Amy and Dale were still in the “butterflies in the tummy” stage of their relationship and Simpson was topping the charts on her way to superstardom. Ultimately, Simpson and Earnhardt never turned that dreamed-about connection into reality, much to Amy’s relief.
Instead, Simpson met former NFL star Eric Johnson in 2010. They got engaged six months later and married in 2014. They welcomed their first two children, Maxwell and Ace, and in 2019, they welcomed daughter Birdie. Toward the end of 2024, photographers spotted Johnson—Simpson’s husband—without his wedding ring while Simpson attempted to revitalize her music career.
“She’s working on music and splits her time between Los Angeles and Nashville. Eric spends all of his time in LA, where the kids go to school,” a source close to the couple told PEOPLE. “Jess and Eric very much live separate lives.”
I’m not a marriage counselor, but when a couple lives separate lives, that sounds like a surefire path to divorce court. On the flip side, Dale Jr. and Amy married in 2016 and now raise their two daughters, Isla and Nicole, together. If I had to place a bet on which couple's marriage is going to stand the test of time and remain healthy and balanced, I would pick Dale Jr. and Amy. It seems like they genuinely enjoy each other's company, and, I've been told, that's a pretty important ingredient for staying together.
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