Nick Lachey says a recent six-and-a-half-hour flight to Hawaii with Jessica Simpson was not awkward, even though the former couple had not seen each other in 20 years.
Lachey, 51, described the encounter on May 13 while appearing on Watch What Happens Live, saying the trip with Simpson and their respective families turned out to be “strangely okay.” He said everyone on board was “very, very cordial, very respectful” and added, “It was honestly fine.”
The singer and television personality said he was traveling with his wife, Vanessa Lachey, and their children, while Simpson was on the same flight with her mother, ex Eric Johnson and their children. Lachey and Simpson’s divorce was finalized in 2006, years after they filmed MTV’s Newlyweds from 2003 to 2005, a show that began as a vehicle to promote music and unexpectedly became a reality hit.
Reports about the run-in surfaced nearly two months before Lachey spoke publicly about it, but his version removed much of the drama that usually hangs over an exes’ reunion. Instead, he framed it as a long flight shared by two families who managed to keep things polite.
That may be the clearest detail to take from the story: whatever history once defined Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey, the encounter did not reopen it. It passed like a trip most people would rather forget for the cramped seats alone.
Nick Lachey says flight run-in with Jessica Simpson was ‘strangely okay’
