Ashlee Simpson Reflects on 'SNL' Debacle, Co-Parenting With Pete Wentz, Rejecting a Purity Ring From Her Father & Her Virginity Age

On losing her voice due to an acid reflux flare-up before her SNL performance:

“If I would’ve had that power to really have been like — which I would have now, or looking back — I’d be like, ‘I won’t be showing up. Period.’”

On what she thought after learning she had two nodules on her vocal cords that were “beating against each other,” and explaining to the SNL team in a handwritten note and being asked to go on with pre-recorded vocals:

“My band has never practiced this, this is not going to go well. I can’t do this.”

On the infamous SNL performance:

“I wrote all these songs and I did all this and almost to have your credit completely taken from you and you’re like, ‘No’…it taught me humility, it taught me so much about myself and my own personal strength…how to get back up and go again. So there’s something about that too.”

On her reality TV show at the time, and moving on:

“I feel like having the show at that time was nice because all the people that were my fans stuck with me and I went back on stage and I went back to it all. But I think having to find – at a young age – that strength to be like, ‘No, I’m good at this. I will keep going. I will keep fighting.’ For me it was like a week of sulking ‘til I had to be like, ‘Okay, I need to get all these steroids and be able to have my voice and get back on stage and figure this out.’ And I feel like I owed that to my fans and myself and that’s what I did. The harder part of it for me was everyone bringing it up. I had let it go.”