Nick Lachey on Jessica Simpson Flight: ‘Strangely OK’

Twenty years is a long time. Long enough, apparently, to make a six-and-a-half-hour flight with your ex-wife feel like something other than a disaster.

Nick Lachey confirmed on Wednesday’s episode of Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen that he and Jessica Simpson did, in fact, cross paths on a March 29 flight from Los Angeles to Hawaii — their first face-to-face encounter since their divorce was finalized back in 2006. And his verdict on the whole thing? “It was strangely okay.”

“You know, it’s been 20 years since — and so we hadn’t seen each other in those 20 years and then spent six and a half hours on a flight to Hawaii together,” the 98 Degrees singer, 52, told host Andy Cohen. He was quick to clarify what “spent” actually meant in this context: “When I say ‘spent’ — in the same vicinity.”

“Everyone was very, very cordial, very respectful,” he added. “It was honestly fine.”

Lachey said his whole family was on board — wife Vanessa Lachey and their three kids, sons Camden, 13, and Phoenix, 9, and daughter Brooklyn, 11. Simpson, 45, was seated next to her mother, Tina Ann Drew. As for her estranged husband, former NFL player Eric Johnson — the couple announced their separation in January 2025 after 10 years of marriage — Lachey noted he was on the plane but in a different section with their kids. “I believe her kids and her — I’m not familiar with where they stand, but — her husband, maybe, were on the plane but not with us,” he said, with the kind of careful phrasing of someone who knows exactly how his words will land.

What Actually Happened on That Flight

When the story first broke in April, the early reports painted a slightly different picture. TMZ reported that Simpson had switched seats to put more distance between herself and her ex. But the version Lachey told on WWHL — and the one that lines up with what a source told People at the time — was considerably warmer.

“They all had a nice conversation. Nick, Jessica, and Vanessa,” the insider told People. “It was very amicable and cordial.”

Cohen, ever the perfect instigator, asked whether Jessica’s kids were seated in a separate class of service from her. Lachey confirmed that they were.

The whole exchange had the energy of someone who has genuinely made peace with the past — Lachey laughed through most of it, seemingly unbothered by the question and whatever awkwardness the universe threw at him somewhere over the Pacific.

A Love Story That Defined an Era

Nick and Jessica were the couple of the early 2000s. They met at a Christmas party in L.A. in the late ’90s — Lachey has said he was smitten from the moment he saw her and spent the whole night searching for her. They collaborated on the song “Where You Are” for Simpson’s album Sweet Kisses in 2000, briefly split in 2001, and then reunited after September 11, with Simpson saying the attacks made her realize she never wanted to be apart from him again.

They married in Texas in 2002 in front of about 300 guests, and almost immediately became reality TV royalty. Newlyweds: Nick & Jessica ran on MTV for three seasons from 2003 to 2005, giving fans an unusually intimate look at a celebrity marriage — including, famously, Simpson’s “Is this chicken or is this fish?” moment that somehow became a cultural touchstone.

By 2005, the cracks were showing. They announced their separation that year, with Simpson filing for divorce citing irreconcilable differences. It was finalized in 2006.

In her 2020 memoir Open Book, Simpson reflected on the relationship with the kind of honesty that made the book a bestseller. “Nick loved the fact I was so strong in my faith and that I had this wide-eyed innocent approach to life,” she wrote. “We were young and pioneering our way through reality television, always miked and always on. We worked and we were great at it but when it came time to being alone, we weren’t great at it anymore.”

She also wrote about an emotional affair with her Dukes of Hazzard co-star Johnny Knoxville — “flowery love letters back and forth, often at night with Nick passed out in the bed next to me” — a revelation that made headlines when the book dropped.

Speaking to People around the memoir’s release, Simpson was clear about where she stood on her first marriage. “We meant a lot to each other and we always will,” she said. “I want to be very respectful because I married him for a reason and we were together for seven years for a reason. He has a family now and I would never say anything to disrespect that.”

Lachey, for his part, has never shied away from acknowledging the weight of that chapter of his life either. On The Ultimatum Season 3 last December, he told a contestant: “I, too, was previously married, divorced, so I understand the hurt, the scars that exist from that. Don’t let your past define your future.”

He and Vanessa, who married in 2011, now co-host Netflix’s Love Is Blind and Perfect Match together — proof, if any was needed, that he took his own advice.

Twenty years, a transcontinental flight, two families, and one very loaded seating arrangement. And somehow, according to everyone involved: fine.