On a Tuesday, memory of Ashlee Simpson's Saturday Night Live controversy is fading…but she'd still like to set the record straight.
In fact, 20 years after the scandal, the "Boyfriend" singer reflected on the 2004 SNL lip-synching performance that effectively halted her career.
"It was a humbling moment for me," Ashlee told Rachel Bilson and Olivia Allen on the Feb. 19 episode of their Broad Ideas podcast. "I think I had the No. 1 song, and everything was about to go somewhere, and then it was just like, ‘Whoa.' The humility of not even understanding what grown-ass people would say about you—like grown men—awful, awful things."
The controversy ensued during her debut appearance on SNL in October 2004 when it was revealed she was lip-syncing. At the time, Ashlee was supposed to be performing "Autobiography" when a vocal track of her hit "Pieces of Me," began playing instead.
And in the years following the debacle, Ashlee—who shares daughter Jagger Snow, 8, and son Ziggy, 2, with husband Evan Ross, as well as son Bronx, 15, with ex Pete Wentz—has felt unable to escape it.
"I went back to SNL with my second album, and I can't find it anywhere—probably because that was their moment with me," the 39-year-old continued. "I wrote all these songs and I did all this and—to have your credit completely taken from you."
The "LaLa" singer—who was just 20 years old when the infamous performance took place—also expressed that she felt pressured into doing it despite voicing concerns.
"That label exec making you go do something—and I was like, ‘My band has never practiced this, this is not gonna go well, I can't do this,'" she added. "The power of me saying, ‘Absolutely not,' That's what I'd go back and say."
Still, she did find a silver lining from it all.
"I feel like having the show at that time was nice because all the people that were my fans stuck with me," Ashlee added. "I went back on stage and I went back to it all."
In fact, Ashlee went on to release two more albums—I Am Me and Bittersweet World—and even began collaborating with her husband under the band name Ashlee + Evan in 2018.
And of course, the duo have also created an adorable life with each other and their children outside of the music industry. Read on for all their sweet pics.