How Ashlee Simpson Really Feels About SNL Controversy 20 Years Later – E! Online

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.