Jessica Simpson, Natalie Portman clash over bikini photo: Buzz – Syracuse.com

Jessica Simpson, left, and Natalie Portman are feuding over Simpson’s bikini photo from 1999, nearly twenty years later.

Jessica Simpson is upset at Natalie Portman for “shaming” her bikini photo from back in 1999. “I remember being a teenager, and there was Jessica Simpson on the cover of a magazine saying ‘I’m a virgin’ while wearing a bikini, and I was confused. Like, I don’t know what this is trying to tell me as a woman, as a girl,” Portman told USA Today on Wednesday. Simpson famously waited to have sex until her first marriage to Nick Lachey, and wrote the 2003 song “Sweetest Sin” about it.

“I was disappointed this morning when I read that I ‘confused’ you by wearing a bikini in a published photo taken of me when I was still a virgin in 1999,” Simpson responded on Instagram. “…I was taught to be myself and honor the different ways all women express themselves, which is why I believed then – and I believe now – that being sexy in a bikini and being proud of my body are not synonymous with having sex. I have always embraced being a role model to all women to let them know that they can look however they want, wear whatever they want and have sex or not have sex with whomever they want… I have made it my practice to not shame other women for their choices. In this era of Time’s Up and all the great work you have done for women, I encourage you to do the same.”

Portman apologized in a new interview with ET, but explained that she was criticizing mixed messages in the media — not Simpson.”I would never intend to shame anybody and that was absolutely not my intention,” Portman said. “I was really talking about mixed media messages out there for young women and completely apologize for any hurt it may have caused because that was definitely not my intention… It is a mistake to say anyone’s name. I could have made my message without naming.”