It’s safe to say we live in an age of oversharing – where it’s unlikely you’ll get through the day without knowing where your friends, and favourite celebrities, are in the world, who they’re seeing or what they’re eating for dinner. Needless to say, our appetite for information has only grown as a result.
But still, there are limits to our fascination into other people’s lives – and knowing how often they do the deed might just be overkill. This was something we learned the hard way last week, after hearing how often husband and wife duo Nick and Vanessa Lachey have sex.
Speaking to Brides magazine, the TV golden couple, who together front Netflix’s Love is Blind and The Ultimatum, got candid about how often they make hanky-panky, revealing it’s a diarised event that happens weekly, every Wednesday – or 'hump day', as it’s fittingly known.
Explaining how they came to that agreement, Vanessa, 44, said she initially mooted it to Nick after being given the advice by friends to schedule a day that prioritised their physical relationship. 'He’s like, "What, schedule a sex day?"' Vanessa revealed. 'It sounds weird when you say that, so we decided: Wednesday - hump day.' She added that they also have a day that they put aside simply to focus on logistics and planning the week ahead for them and their three children. According to Nick, those two days are now cemented in their schedule: 'Happy hump day and calendar dump day,' he said.
It may seem like TMI, but it’s important to note that Nick, 51, and Vanessa’s 13-year marriage stands front and centre in their day job, sharing co-presenting duties on two love and dating programmes. On both Love is Blind (which pairs singletons together without letting them see each other’s faces) and The Ultimatum (where couples are encouraged to put their love to the test), both Nick and Vanessa have openly shared with contestants insights into their own relationship – the good, the bad and the ugly.
For example, in the first season of The Ultimatum, Vanessa revealed that she herself had given Nick an ultimatum before he proposed. 'We dated for five years,' she told contestants. 'I finally said, "What are we doing?" If I’m being completely candid and transparent, we took a break. We both saw one other person, and we realized that if we got out of our own way, we could be amazing together.' They’ve also been honest – in interviews and on their reality shows – how they still work with a marriage therapist to keep their relationship on track.
Speaking to Brides, Vanessa explained, 'It’s nice for [the contestants] to see that, yes, we’ve been together 19 years, married for 13, and we are seeing a therapist, and we still have problems.' Yet according to Nick, it’s those problems – and the work they put in to solving them – that make them stronger.
'Anything that’s worth having takes work,' he weighed in during their Brides interview. 'To me, that’s a cornerstone of life, and marriage is no different. There’s no shame in that.'
Reaching 13 years of happy marriage is certainly a triumph for any couple – but even more so for two people in the limelight. Add to that the fact that, though diarised, they’re still managing to prioritise their intimacy makes their union even more impressive. Yet it took a while for both Nick and Vanessa to find the one that stuck.
As if you need reminding, Nick was – of course – one of the prototypes of fly-on-the-wall reality TV when he and his then wife, Jessica Simpson, fronted their own show in the early noughties. The popular series, which ran from 2003 and 2005, followed the young couple as they settled into married life, giving us some iconic lines and memories along the way. Who could forget the classic moment Jessica, while eating a can of 'chicken of the sea' tuna, asked her then husband, 'Is this chicken, what I have, or is this fish? I know it’s tuna, but it says chicken.'
Fans were duly devastated when they announced their separation in November 2005, saying in a statement that, 'After three years of marriage, and careful thought and consideration, we have decided to part ways.' Nick himself has hinted at “the hurt, the scars” that lingered from their split, telling a contestant on The Ultimatum:'Don’t let your past define your future. What I truly always wanted in my life, which was to have a beautiful marriage and a beautiful family.'
He added, 'If I hadn’t retained my belief in that, I wouldn’t have ever realized the beautiful life I have with this woman' – referencing his happy marriage to Vanessa.
Jessica, for her part, has sadly faced heartbreak again in recent months, after splitting from her second husband, former NFL player Eric Johnson. The mother-of-three recently announced they were divorcing after 10 years, calling it a 'painful situation' – which, we can only assume, brought back memories of her bitter split from first husband, Nick.
But as for Nick and Vanessa, it seems like they’re on solid and happy ground, having moved from Hawaii to Los Angeles last year with their children – Camden, 12, Brooklyn, 10, and Phoenix, eight.
So, by all accounts, the TV pair are going from strength to strength – especially on a Wednesday. As for us, we’re torn between wishing they would just keep their sex schedule to themselves, or rather asking every other celebrity if and when they too find the time in their diaries to do the dirty.
Let’s not forget, when it comes to TMI, famous faces do it best. Ariana Grande infamously tweeted about Pete Davidson’s '10 inches', while Chrissy Teigen once shared that she and John Legend are members of the mile-high club, after getting naughty under a blanket while flying first-class. Meanwhile, speaking of Jessica Simpson, we can’t overlook the time that her ex-boyfriend John Mayer called her 'sexual napalm'. With all that being said, Nick and Vanessa’s sex schedule admission could have been a whole lot worse.