Early life Of Ashlee Simpson

Ashlee Simpson was born in Waco, Texas, and raised in Richardson, Texas. She is the daughter of Joe Truett Ashlee Simpson (a former Baptist youth minister who is now her manager) and Tina Ann Drew (a former Sunday School teacher who homeschooled Ashlee).

Ashlee attended Prairie Creek Elementary. An accomplished dancer, Ashlee Simpson began studying classical ballet at the age of three, and was admitted to the School of American Ballet in New York City at the age of eleven. Around that time, she suffered from an eating disorder; the condition lasted about six months, and she dropped to about 31 kg (70 pounds) at 159 cm (5 ft 2 in), but her parents then stepped in and got her to eat more. After her sister Jessica Ashlee Simpson landed a record deal, the Ashlee Simpson family decided to move to Los Angeles, California, where Ashlee began appearing in television commercials.

The Saturday Night Live incident

Ashlee Simpson appeared as a musical guest on Episode 568 of Saturday Night Live (October 23–24, 2004), and as is customary for the show's format, she was scheduled to perform two songs. Her first song, "Pieces of Me", was performed without problems. However, when she began her second song, "Autobiography", the vocals for the song "Pieces of Me" were heard again—before she had raised the microphone to her mouth. Ashlee Simpson began to dance and then left the stage, while the band (not a recording) continued playing. During the closing of the show Ashlee Simpson appeared with the guest host Jude Law, and said "I'm so sorry. My band started playing the wrong song, and I didn't know what to do, so I thought I'd do a hoe down."

On October 25, Ashlee Simpson called in to the music video show Total Request Live and explained that due to complications arising from "severe" acid reflux (which had previously been seen in The Ashlee Ashlee Simpson Show) she had completely lost her voice and her doctor had advised her not to sing. She said that because of the acid reflux, her father wanted her to use a vocal guide track for the performance. She said of the incident, "I made a complete fool of myself." According to Ashlee Simpson, the drummer hit the wrong button, which caused the wrong track to be played. During the October 25 Radio Music Awards broadcast, Ashlee Simpson pretended, as a joke, to make the same mistake as she did in the SNL incident, but then began to perform "Autobiography" without using a pre-recorded vocal track as she had done during the prior SNL performance. On October 31, the CBS news program 60 Minutes aired footage from Ashlee Simpson's rehearsals before the SNL performance in which Ashlee Simpson is shown to be disturbed by voice trouble.

Jeanette Walls compared the impact of the SNL incident to the 1990 Milli Vanilli incident in which their guide track skipped during a live MTV performance, revealing that they were lip-synching.

The New York Times said the much-viewed clip of Ashlee Simpson's SNL appearance "may just be this year's best music video," but dismissed its significance: "one of 2004's most popular new stars had been exposed as ... As what, exactly?"