Joe Simpson wants to find a new kid to manage via a reality TV show search.
Having exhausted his supply of daughters, Joe Simpson is about to start trolling the country searching for a new child to exploit, or, to use the Hollywood term, “manage.” The former minister and youth counselor “has started pitching television and music executives on the idea” of holding auditions to find surrogate offspring. He wants “to showcase the approach he and his wife take to child rearing, emphasizing values like honesty and abstinence before marriage,” a New York Times profile reveals.
Responding to charges that he’s exploited his two existing, biological daughters, who he also manages, Simpson says, “Would I do anything to help them get to their dream? Absolutely. But would I do something for my benefit as opposed to theirs? Never. My first responsibility is to be a father, before I’m a manager, before I’m an executive producer. It’s complicated, but it’s worked so far. Personally, I have the ability to separate those things.”
Proof of that comes in an anecdote from a record company exec, who says, “when I was arguing with Ashlee and I was firing her producers, and she was crying, ‘Dad I’m so upset, do something,’ any other manager–forget father–would have jumped in. Joe sat there and didn’t open his mouth.” Ah, that’s what he means by being a father first.
On pimping his girls out to skin mags like Maxim, Joe Simpson says, “That’s God’s business, judgment. Our reason was, we’re not too good to do Maxim. The people that read it are not bad people.” The money from those appearances and his kids’ other ventures goes to a business manager. Why? The man who, as the Times puts it, “gave his daughter a ‘purity ring’ and pledged to be the central man in her life until she married,” says that he wanted them to know that “Daddy never touched their stuff. I wanted them to always look at me with respect.”
