In a world before Keeping Up with the Kardashians on E! and Bravo’s Housewives franchise—and before celebrities appearing on reality television was ubiquitous and commonplace—there was MTV’s Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica, which, if you’ll believe it, premiered 20 years ago this week. (!) In another bit of news that will make any millennial feel ancient, an entirely new generation of folks are discovering the show for the first time thanks to the power that is TikTok—but we bet they don’t know how Nick Lachey was the heartthrob of the boy band 98*, and how Jessica Simpson was a solo artist that had pipes that could rival fellow artist Christina Aguilera. We even bet that, when Lachey—sitting next to his second wife, Vanessa—said on the Love is Blind third season reunion last November that marriage “is always better the second time,” it flew over the young whippersnapper’s heads entirely.
