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Page 1
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A tattooed, blinged-out Ashlee worries about offending PETA ...
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Page 2
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The singer talks about the 'SNL' snafu and the Orange Bowl boos ...
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Page 3
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Three guys from Jersey wear their hormones on their T-shirts ...
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Photo Gallery
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Ashlee Simpson: From lip-synch to live
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Opening night of Ashlee's Autobiography Tour
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Or enter a band name below to search:
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 Bands Main
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In her song "Autobiography," Ashlee sings, "Nobody's really seen my million subtleties," and Stephanie helps her friend make sure that it stays that way, either by assisting her in nailing down what they think is the inoffensive, "right" (and ultimately vague) reply, or encouraging her to just bow out when a simple answer isn't there ("What are some of my million subtleties? How will I answer that? Any advice, Stephanie?" Ashlee asks with a pensive look on her face. "Maybe you could come back to that question," Stephanie says.)
We do see a bit of who Ashlee is on "The Ashlee Simpson Show." But the singer makes sure we don't get any closer than she wants us to — what we see is what she wants us to see. Ashlee's caginess when faced with questions trying to get at "who she really is" comes across largely as a well-thought-out strategy to keep a distance and maintain control over her privacy and innermost feelings. Privacy, for Ashlee, is worth more than her new bling. "When we're shooting the show," she says, "every now and then I'd be like, 'OK, I have to go have my "me" time' — even if it is just sitting in my bathroom."
The singer's reliance on her best friend and a we're-all-in-this-together view of her career helps explain why her female teen and tween fans love her so much — almost all young girls do the same thing, seeing themselves and their friends as one many-limbed entity that moves together and figures stuff out together. This is why girls travel in packs to the restroom. Why they walk through the school halls clutching their pal's arm like they'll collapse if they let go. Why a group of friends will all buy the same soft-serve ice cream with colored sprinkles from the Ritacco Center's concession stand.
Many girls also identify with the horrifying embarrassment and very public humiliation that Ashlee has had to endure over the past year, which basically mirrors every girl's own tripping and falling in the classroom or having her crush call her ugly to her face — but multiplied by a million, of course, in Ashlee's case. And if she can get through the bumpy spots — the "Saturday Night Live" lip-synching debacle, the Orange Bowl booing, her tour kickoff when her guitarist's instrument fell off and skittered across the stage during the opening number — anybody can.
"I've been through a lot of tough situations throughout this whole year, but I've managed to keep myself together because I figure, you know, things happen to everybody," Ashlee explains. "If I just let go and crumble, then I would be so upset with myself, just like anybody would. It's all about keeping yourself together and looking forward to the future."
Like so many other fans, Devin Barry, a 16-year-old from Jackson, New Jersey, and one of the very, very few males in attendance at the concert, sees the singer's "Saturday Night Live" blunder as having a big upside. "I like that Ashlee had the ability to bounce back after the 'SNL' thing," he says on the venue floor. "That takes some real heart."
Some of the other guys at the show like more than Ashlee's heart, of course.
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Photo: Jason Campbell/ Getty Images/ MTV News
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