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By Sarah Caden
Sunday Dec 18 2011
American reality-television star Jessica Simpson was several months pregnant before she publicly admitted it.
Not that a woman is obliged to make a public announcement, but when, like Simpson, you've played out your first marriage and most of your adult life on television, it kind of comes with the territory. You could read her initial silence as an early protective instinct, or, more cynically, you could speculate that she slowly allowed interest to build as her belly burgeoned, increasing the price of any baby-announcement story or first-photos deal.
It's hard not to plump for the latter, as it is now reported that Simpson has landed a multi-million dollar post-partum contract that puts all others in the shade. After her spring baby arrives, apparently, the new mother will be working with WeightWatchers to shed the pounds, a deal which will put an unenviable pressure on Simpson and, further, only fuel the out-of-control attention paid to how swiftly celebs can get slim again after childbirth. And, horror of horrors, what if she can't? Or can't at the required speed? It's easy to sneer, but we should also feel sympathy.
As she and fiance Eric Johnson have not gone public with a due date -- see, some things are sacred -- we can only speculate that Jessica Simpson was about five months gone when she admitted to being pregnant.
And it was a case of admitting, as she was obviously getting bigger. So, for a while, the subtext was that she was getting fat and that, one can speculate, only makes her weight-loss deal of more value. Because women can relate, because she seems normal, and seems to have suffered slagging for her size and is going to have to make a conscious effort to shed the pounds.
But does any woman want to be that particular pin-up in the months after giving birth, when one feels so raw and exposed and uncertain? As a deal-maker, Jessica Simpson may be a shrewd operator, but new motherhood may well make a mockery of that.
Sarah Caden
- Sarah Caden
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