Jessica Simpson was “killing [herself]” with drugs and alcohol when trying to block out the pain of being abused as a child.

The 39-year-old star was warned by doctors that her self-medication was endangering her life, and so she’s now been sober since November 2017.

In an excerpt from her new memoir, Open Book, obtained by People magazine, she admitted: “I was killing myself with all the drinking and pills.

“Giving up the alcohol was easy. I was mad at that bottle. At how it allowed me to stay complacent and numb.”

Therapy was difficult

But while giving up the booze was “easy”, the Dukes of Hazzard star admitted therapy was much more difficult.

She wrote: “With work, I allowed myself to feel the traumas I’d been through.”

Jessica claimed she was first abused when she was six years old and “shared a bed with the daughter of a family friend.”

She admitted: “It would start with tickling my back and then go into things that were extremely uncomfortable.”

The These Boots Are Made for Walking singer was desperate to confide in someone but felt frozen with fear and convinced she was to blame.

She wrote: “I wanted to tell my parents. I was the victim but somehow I felt in the wrong.”

Jessica eventually opened up to her parents, Tina and Joe Simpson, when they were in the car when she was just 12 years old and discovered her mother had had some suspicions.