Jessica Simpson has slipped back into her iconic Daisy Dukes denim shorts two decades after first wearing them, and fans are swooning over how little she's changed.
Since popularizing the cheeky cut-offs, the actress and singer has birthed three children, packed on the weight that comes with pregnancy, weathered a high-profile separation from husband Eric Johnson, and endured yo-yo dieting and on-again, off-again training regimens.
Highlights
- Jessica Simpson wowed fans by slipping back into her iconic Daisy Duke denim shorts 20 years later.
- Fans say she looks even better than her younger self in the photo circulating online.
- The singer’s transformation follows motherhood, weight gain, separation, and intense training.
Yet the photo that has tongues wagging portrays Simpson, now 43, as a spitting image of her 24-year-old self, and some suggest she looks better than she did then.
Jessica Simpson is a spitting image of her Daisy Duke character from 2005
Image credits: jessicasimpson
In the photo posted to Instagram, the actress shows off her slim figure in scanty bottoms, a plunging leopard-print sleeveless top, and red platform sandals.
Her blond mop is loose in much the same way she wore it in The Dukes of Hazzard, making her almost identical to her character, Daisy Duke.
“Cut denim blues and red shoes are this summer's go-tos,” she captioned the photo and drew responses like:
Image credits: michael loccisano/Getty
“So beautiful and gorgeous, especially wearing them in the Dukes of Hazard movie.”
“Daisy Duke, is that you?” asked another, as a nod to her 19-year-old character.
She kept a daily 14,000-step regimen
But the picture of youth and fitness did not come without tribulation. During her pregnancy with her youngest, Daisy Mae, her weight reached 260 lbs.
Following the child’s birth in May 2019, Simpson took a short period to recover before starting with a 6,000-step walking regimen, which soon escalated to 14,000.
“It’s not easy at all, but I am determined to feel good,” she told People during an interview in the same year.
“I have been doing a lot of walking, getting my steps in, not only burns calories but it also helps me clear my head and get focused.”
Her efforts resulted in her shedding 100 lbs. in six months
The next step was full-body workouts every second day with celebrity personal trainer, Harley Pasternak.
The fitness guru gave an interview of their own on E! News and talked about the exercises Simpson was doing, saying:
Image credits: NBC/Getty
“We started with doing a full-body workout, one set of each exercise, not really doing too much intensity per body part, and gradually increasing the volume and intensity.”
All of this effort resulted in Simpson shedding 100lbs over a period of six months.
Image credits: Desiree Navarro/Getty
She celebrated the milestone in one of her regular updates, saying: “My first trip away from #BIRDIEMAE and emotional for many reasons, but so proud to feel like myself again. Even when it felt impossible, I chose to work harder.”
She decided that since everyone was discussing her weight, she would make money off of it
Around three years later, in 2022, she opened up to Extra TV about the challenges she faced on her weight loss journey.
Image credits: L. Cohen/Getty
“I’ve been criticized, and it hurts, but I’ve been every weight, and I’ve been proud of it.”
But it was not without a silver lining: “I decided, ‘Okay, everybody is going to talk about my weight all the time, I might as well make money off of it and turn it into a business of selling clothes and acceptance.”
Whether the result of diet, exercise, or something else, Jessica's photos slot into a growing visual archive of before-and-after celebrity weight loss transformations spotlighted in the Ozempic era.
Image credits: stansmith98
As a nod to the latter, the recent photo was part of an advertising effort by her brand, The Jessica Simpson Collection, which was launched during the same year as the movie that gave the shorts the name.
Social media was not impressed with her recent return to the live stage
The actress put in her first live stage appearance in May this year at the Season 23 finale of American Idol.
Bored Panda reported that she serenaded audiences with her 2005 remake of Nancy Sinatra’s These Boots Are Made for Walkin’ and her new single Blame Me.
Social media was not entirely pleased with her performance, with some dubbing it “messy” and “a joke.”
The internet does not believe the walking hack
