Jessica Simpson's father was so convinced her marriage to Nick Lachey would not work out, he offered to help her escape as they walked down the aisle.
The singer-turned-fashion mogul fell for the 98 Degrees frontman after meeting at a Christmas party in 1998, and she was so taken by the pop star, she declared she would one day become Mrs. Lachey.
"I said, 'Mum, that's the man I'm going to marry,' absolutely," Simpson recalled on U.S. breakfast show Today. "I knew. I was 19 years old, but I knew.
"I loved everything about Nick; I just wanted to be in his presence."
The couple became engaged in February, 2002, exchanging vows just eight months later, but her dad Joe, a Baptist youth minister, was not a fan of the couple rushing to become husband and wife.
He expressed his concerns to Jessica at the time, and even offered her a way out as he was about to escort her down the aisle at the Austin, Texas ceremony.
"I was about to walk down the aisle, and he's like, 'We don't have to do this,'" Simpson shared. "I'm like, 'Dad, what are you talking about? We gotta walk, like, right now! My future husband is like, 12 feet away. We gotta go!'
"He's like, 'Let's go (get out of here).' I think that he knew that I wasn't ready for what marriage actually was."
Simpson and Lachey ended up splitting in 2005 and their divorce was finalised in 2006.
The star, now 39, has since settled down with retired American football player Eric Johnson, the father of her three children, and Simpson is thankful to have been given a second chance at lasting love.
"I got lucky," she beamed of finding Johnson. "I felt like I had a great perspective. God was like, 'This is what you've been waiting for!'"
The couple has been married since 2014.
Simpson details her relationships, her childhood sex abuse, and her struggles with substance abuse in her new memoir, Open Book.
