‘It Was a Humbling Moment for Me’

Ashlee Simpson is revisiting her infamous Saturday Night Live performance in a new podcast interview.

On the latest episode of Rachel Bilson’s Broad Ideas, the “Pieces of Me” singer recalls “losing my f—king voice” the morning she was set to make her SNL debut, on Oct. 23, 2004.

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“I had done my rehearsal the night before, then I woke up the next day and I couldn’t speak,” Simpson claims. “I saw the voice doctor that day, and I had two nodules beating against each other. That was a rough go.

“That day I said, ‘I will not go on. I do not care. I can’t speak,’” she recalls. “Meanwhile, I’m not saying this. I’m writing it down because I can’t talk.”

Alas, Simpson did go on, and her initial performance of “Pieces of Me” went off without a hitch. But when it came time for her planned second song, “Autobiography,” her vocals for “Pieces of Me” bizarrely began playing again before she’d even lifted the microphone to sing. What followed was a painful minute in which Simpson did an awkward jig, shrugged helplessly and exited the stage, leaving her band to play until a merciful commercial break.

TVLine deemed it one of the 20 most shocking live TV moments of all time.

At the end of the SNL episode — which lives on Peacock… minus Simpson’s performances — the 7th Heaven actress alleged that it was her band that started to play the wrong song, leaving her confused. Only later did it come to light that she’d lost her voice.

“It was a humbling moment for me,” Simpson says now, reflecting on the blowback she received. “To learn how to tune that out… to find my strength… to get up and go again.”

Above all else, she says, it taught her “the power of my no.”

Watch Simpson’s Broad Ideas interview above — SNL talk begins at the 45:00 mark — then hit the comments with your reactions.

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