Ashlee Simpson is no more of a threat to Fall Out Boy’s success than Pete Wentz’s affinity for eyeliner. So says the band’s guitarist Joe Trohman, who didn’t take kindly to a New York Daily News gossip item about a source telling OK! that the younger Simpson sis was “poison” to the pop-punk rockers, and could possibly be part of the reason why 2007’s Infinity on High didn’t score any Grammy nods.
The group’s “pal” reportedly told the magazine that Grammy voters have been put off by Simpson since she was caught lip-synching on Saturday Night Live in 2004.
“This is what we like to call tabloid bulls–t,” Trohman wrote in a posting to his blog on friendsorenemies.com.
“We don’t have any ‘pals’ that gossip to the tabloids over our business. Those kind of folk are called douchebags, and we don’t fraternize with douchebags. We also don’t blame a certain someone for our lack of a Grammy nod. That’s absolutely f—ing absurd. We might be irrational, chemically imbalanced babies, but our discontent is only directed at those who we feel slighted us to a degree.
“And at the same time, we’re just over it. We don’t need to be validated by a piece of metal. Don’t believe the gossip columns out there. This ‘poisonous’ person that was mentioned is nothing short of awesome, and we fully back her. Everything in Camp FOB is all good.”
The only hardware Fall Out Boy has picked up for its multiplatinum efforts has been of the MTV Video Music Award and Teen Choice variety. But, then again, the Chicago quartet has sold millions of records.
Infinity on High debuted at number one on the Billboard charts after selling 260,000 copies its first week out. The band–Wentz, Trohman, lead vocalist Patrick Stump and drummer Andy Hurley–spent the fall headlining the Young Wild Things Tour alongside Plain White T’s, Gym Class Heroes and Cute Is What We Aim For, and they rang in the holiday season on Friday at NYC radio station Z100’s annual Jingle Ball concert at Madison Square Garden.
So while Simpson may be putting a damper on thousands of tweenage girls’ visions of coupledom with Wentz, she doesn’t seem to be hurting FOB’s popularity.
The “Pieces of Me” singer was busy last week shooting the video for her Timbaland-produced tune “Out of My Head (Ay Ya Ya),” off of her upcoming third album, due out early next year.
In the video, which Wentz told MTV News was his girlfriend’s “weirdest” to date, Simpson takes the song’s title to heart, bouncing off the walls of a surreal set and hallucinating trippy therapy sessions and an out-of-body experience.
“It’s like a Salvador Dalà painting meets Being John Malkovich,” Wentz said. “She just went to this weird place for it. It has this kind of multiple personality, like the song does.”
Meanwhile, Ashlee’s not the only Simpson getting flak for a less-than-stellar showing by her high-profile beau.
Jessica Simpson made headlines in a different section of the paper Monday after her presence at the Dallas-Philadelphia game Sunday happened to coincide with the Cowboys’ second loss of the season and an unusually poor performance from quarterback Tony Romo, who has been dating the divorced songstress.
Despite having a pink-jersey-clad Simpson to cheer him on from a Texas Stadium luxury suite, Romo, who had no touchdowns and three interceptions, had the lowest single-game rating of his career–his worst showing since last Christmas, when former flame Carrie Underwood witnessed his team lose to the Eagles 23-7.
The Los Angeles Times joked about the “Jessica Jinx” and the “Carrie Curse,” while a posting on the Cowboys’ fan site The ‘Boys Blog surmised that Simpson could become “the most hated celebrity significant other since Yoko Ono.”
Romo also injured his throwing hand in the third quarter, so it’s likely that his bruised thumb is going to bear the brunt of the Cowboys’ loss, saving the QB’s teammates the trouble of posting a retaliatory blog item.