Jessica Simpson Fires Publicist

Jessica Simpson's father, Joe Simpson, has shown his daughter's publicist the door. Rob Shuter, Simpson's now former publicist, was canned by the singer's father after his handling of Jessica's relationship with singer/songwriter John Mayer.

Rob Shuter's untimely termination as Jessica Simpson's publicist came after People magazine ran a cover story which claimed Simpson was in love with John Mayer. That was followed up with an Us Weekly headline that pronounced Simpson "Dumped!". All of this comes after Jessica Simpson appeared on The View, where she refuted the claims. On the show, Simpson said "I am actually not dating John Mayer."

A source close to Simpson told Radar magazine that the cover story was blown out of proportion, saying it was "100 percent Shuter. He broke all the rules of the game. He's a pathological liar. I wonder how much Jessica even knew what he was up to." Rob Shuter was not available for comment about his termination.

Joe Simpson didn't confirm the romance between the two singers in the People magazine article. However, E Online quoted the article, which had Joe Simpson gushing "I love John Mayer…If my daughter's happy, then I'm happy. And if she's in love, then I'm in love with the fact that she finds happiness. It's been a tough year for her."

On the other side of the coin, John Mayer doesn't seem to be too thrilled about the whole debacle. The September 18th edition of Us Weekly features an interview with a "friend" of John Mayer, who said Mayer is distancing himself from the whole thing, and "now he will stay away from her…He thinks it's desperate. An attempt for her to stay in the spotlight."

It seems Mayer doesn't like being used to promote someone else's album sales, which is exactly what Rob Shuter was rumored to be doing. In fact, on John Mayer's blog, a headline reading "really enjoying this song" is posted above a picture of the Public Enemy album cover for Don't Believe The Hype. It's left to the readers to detect any underlying symbolism in that message.

With any possibility of there being a relationship between Simpson and Mayer finished, Simpson will go back to focusing on publicity for her new album, A Public Affair. A Public Affair is Simpson's first album since divorcing ex-husband Nick Lachey. A Public Affair debuted at #5 last week, selling just less than 101,000 copies of the album.

[Additional Sources: E Online, JohnMayer.com]