Update

Sorry I haven't updated in a while. I, too, am in the midst of going through a separation/divorce. Except, my husband was the one who decided that he was going to mess things up. So Nick, I empathize. Having your heart broken sucks..........


NICK LACHEY SPEAKS OUT



Nick Lachey is sad.

Watching his MTV special just the other night, you couldn't help but feel sorry for him. Sitting at a restaurant table, Lachey pours his heart out about how he still loves Jessica and he doesn't want to be a repeat of his parents' failed marriage.


It's hard to talk about, he says. He hangs his head; he clears his throat. The camera zooms. He stops talking. There's a long silence, and Nick is left just short of tears.

Then What's Left of Me, fades in: a sparse piano melody that builds into a pleading rock ballad with major chords on the guitar and weepy orchestration.

But there he is on radio show after radio show, milking it for all he can.

And just look at the cover of his upcoming album: He's pouty lipped with an eye half open and an entire desert — lonely, dry and dead — behind him.

In one square photo it promises inside gossip that could revive a music career gasping for air since his 98 Degrees boy-band days.

"It's a good song, but it's not just anybody singing it. It's Nick Lachey and there's a story behind it," said Tracey Austin, program director at KRBE.

If you have missed the cover of every tabloid magazine for the last several months, here's the update: Lachey and wife Jessica Simpson separated late last year.

They were the golden couple. Newlyweds was bigger than The Osbournes and the woman who would fill the shorts of Daisy Duke had become everyone's favorite dumb blonde.

But after the breakup, she took the scandalous route. She left hotels wearing nothing but men's oxfords, and rumors swirled that she and Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine were so amorous their screams made it next door.

Lachey kept a low profile. He inked a deal with ESPN to provide short features about college football and now, half a year later, he's emerged as a wounded puppy.

Still, he's been linked romantically with Laguna Beach star Kristin Cavallari, MTV host Vanessa Minnillo and former beauty queen Lizzie Arnold. OK, so maybe he's a busy, working, wounded puppy.

It's the way to go. Look at last year's other high-profile breakup: Jennifer Aniston, the victim of Brad Pitt's indiscretions with Angelina Jolie, went on to create a healthy film roster (four films in production now), while Pitt has become Jolie's lap dog.

Alanis Morissette's You Oughta Know, a crass vindictive anthem from a hurt dumpee, propelled her album to No. 1 on the Billboard Charts in 1995. And Beck's Sea Change, a depressing album written after the breakup of a long-term relationship, which hit No. 8 on the Billboard 200, compared to his first four albums, including the seminal Odelay, which failed to crack the top 10.

"The public may just be feeling sorry for (Nick), but it seems like the right song at the right time," said Roy Trakin, senior editor at Hits Daily Double, a music magazine.

Right now, the pop charts are ripe for the feel-sorry-for-me What's Left of Me, which comes out May 9.

Daniel Powter's Bad Day, a piano ballad with gray-skies imagery and a power chorus, has topped the charts the last couple of weeks. And the hip-hop dominance let up enough to let James Blunt, another pop rocker, into the charts with You're Beautiful.

Trakin says judging by digital downloads and airplay of the single, Lachey is right on track.

"I think that the audience has a vested interest in him," he said. "They are able to see things through his eyes.

But, more than likely, the reason we'll fall for Lachey is because an album is supposed to be highly personal, and we're looking for some inside gossip about a power couple's demise.