Jessica Simpson claims she turned down lead role in The Notebook

Her stint as an actress was short-lived, but it could have been a different story if she’d accepted the lead in this hugely popular movie.

In her new memoir, Jessica Simpson has revealed she was up for Rachel McAdams’ role in The Notebook, but turned it down because of the sex scene.

“I knew exactly what the movie was about because I had read the script,” she wrote in Open Book, adding that she turned it down “because they wouldn’t budge on taking out the sex scene.”

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Simpson got her acting break in The Dukes of Hazzard in 2005. Picture: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images

She claimed she was offered Rachel McAdams’ role in the romantic movie. Picture: Supplied

“And it would have been with Ryan Gosling, of all people,” Simpson said, having earlier divulged that he was her first crush back in the ’90s when they auditioned for The Mickey Mouse Club together.

She ended up seeing the film for the first time on an aeroplane at the same moment a statement went out announcing her separation from ex-husband Nick Lachey in 2005, back when everyone on an aeroplane had to watch the same movie.

“Oh God, I thought,” she writes. “The most romantic movie in the world, and I was leaving Nick … The movie was on every screen, and I was swept up into it, wishing I had that great love that would be forever.”

Simpson and Lachey in January 2005 – the year they announced their split. Picture: AP Photo/Reed Saxon

Simpson’s no-holds-barred memoir also includes details about her final hook-up with Lachey in 2006, just before their divorce was finalised that June.

Simpson had just watched an MTV documentary about the making of Lachey’s album What’s Left of Me, which detailed the stars’ 2005 split, as well as an episode of Making the Video about the titular song, which co-starred Lachey’s future second wife, Vanessa Minnillo.

“I just wanted to know what he thought of me now, because at that point I had no idea,” she wrote in her memoir. “I watched him portray himself as a victim, casting me as this selfish person.”

She added, “I knew he did this to hurt me.”

Simpson, 39, explained that even though she was angry, she felt responsible for him “breaking down in front of the world,” saying she needed to “fix him.”

“So I called him,” she said. “And I asked to meet him at my house … He rang the bell, and out of reflex I hugged him. I meant it, too. Despite my anger, I missed him.”

She says the pair listened to his new album and all the songs about her.

“I was numb, just blank. How do you react when you find out you have apparently hurt someone so deeply that they feel entitled to such actions? I felt manipulated into some revenge fantasy, but I had put myself in this situation,” the fashion designer wrote in the book. “I didn’t know any other way to make it better, so I slept with him.”

Simpson said she felt no connection to him and it confirmed that he was no longer her husband.

“He didn’t stay the night. I was relieved because I could feel his hate. The whole situation was very dark,” she explained. “When he walked out the door, I knew I would never see him again.”

Simpson and Lachey, 46, were married from 2002 to 2006. He and Minnillo tied the knot in 2011.

Lachey said over the weekend that he had “not read a single word” of the new book that came out Tuesday.

This article originally appeared in the NY Post and was reproduced with permission.