Songfacts®:

• "A Public Affair" is a send-up of celebrity culture, the joke being that Jessica Simpson was very famous, not just for her singing and acting, but for her personal life, which she let us peer in on during her MTV reality show Newlyweds: Nick & Jessica which ran 2002-2005. Nick is Nick Lachey of the boy band 98 Degrees. He carried his weight on the show but Simpson was the breakout star.
  
  After the couple divorced in 2006, Simpson released "A Public Affair" as the title track to her fifth album. The song describes a night out among famous women who enjoy the attention their presence brings.
• The background arrangement at the end of the song was lifted from the Diana Ross song "Ain't No Mountain High Enough." There are also hints of Madonna's "Holiday" on the track.
  
  This musical borrowing is a lot more subtle than what Simpson (more specifically, her producers) did on her 1999 hit "I Think I'm In Love With You," which uses pretty much all the music from John Mellencamp's "Jack & Diane."
• Lots of famous people appear in the video, which was directed by Brett Ratner and shot at the Moonlight Rollerway in Glendale, California. Simpson goes out roller skating with Eva Longoria, Christina Applegate, Maria Menounos and Christina Milian. Ryan Seacrest is their limo driver and Andy Dick gets their bowling shoes.
  
  The video starts with a scene where the girls are in the back of the limo talking about how famous they want to be. "I want to be so famous that every time I fall in love, Oprah does a special about it," Simpson says. Of course, all these ladies knew very well that being famous could be a drag.
• The song was produced by Lester Mendez, known for his work with Shakira and Jewel. He's also a writer on the track along with Simpson, Sam Watters, Johntá Austin, Greg Kurstin, Louis Biancaniello and the writers of "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" (because of the sample). Simpson had always used an array of writers and producers, and that team grew in numbers as her career progressed. By this time, she was contributing lyrics to most of her songs.
• "A Public Affair" was a modest hit, charting at #14 and getting a lot of play in roller rinks thanks to the video. Simpson went country for her next album, Do You Know in 2008, then took a break to raise her three kids.