Jessica Simpson : It Hurt to See Nick with Another Woman

Jessica Simpson says seeing Nick Lachey with another woman after their split was painful reports PEOPLE

"Oh, it hurt me," Simpson tells Elle in its March issue. "Two or three weeks later? Yeah, I'd say it kind of hurt me."

Simpson, 26, says she's still in touch with Lachey, 33.

"He's so much a part of my life, how could I not be? Any guy who's going to be with me from this day forward has to understand that."

Jessica Simpson was silent on her relationship with John Mayer, 29.

"I want to tell you everything, but I have to sew my lips together," she says. "It's hurt me in the past."

"I feel that with this new privacy of yours, I'm going to wake up one morning, pick up the paper and read . . . " Simpson interjects: "That I'm married! Maybe."

Asked if she's "totally in love right now," Simpson grins and says, "I didn't say yes."

"I let people in on who I am and how I react to my husband," Simpson says. "That's a big deal. Celebrities don't do that. So I think they brought me down just because I stopped talking and because I have not spoken – and will not speak – about my divorce. And I think people feel like I owe them my reality right now."

Meanwhile, Vanessa Minnillo and Nick Lachey had a public blowup - when Vanessa flew into a jealous rage over a Jessica Simpson clone.

Thursday at NYC’s Plumm nightclub, Vanessa reportedly spotted Nick with a buxom blonde beauty - cast in the same mold as his ex-wife - seated on his lap. Getting up to leave, she made the universal sign for “call me� … and Vanessa went ballistic.

According to Web site TMZ, the MTV host shouted at her man, “What are you doing?� - followed by “We need to talk!�