Jessica Simpson’s ‘Heart Was Completely Broken’ amid Split from Eric Johnson. How Making New Music ‘Saved’ Me (Exclusive)

Jessica Simpson’s first song from her new EP: Nashville Canyon: Part 1 drops this week and she reveals the story behind her very personal songs, exclusively in this week’s PEOPLE.

“I got thrown a real twist of fate in the middle of making this record,” says the star, 44. “My heart was completely broken. I had to continue to focus on the music. Thank God, I had Nashville.”

In January, she and husband of 10 years, Eric Johnson, 45, with whom she shares three children, Maxwell, 12, Ace, 11, and Birdie, 5, announced their split.  

“Eric and I have been living separately navigating a painful situation in our marriage,” Simpson said in a statement to PEOPLE. “Our children come first, and we are focusing on what is best for them.”

“I have been through the darkest time, being held by the most light in an odd way,” she says of their separation. “I’ve grown up so much. I can handle so much. It wasn’t easy.”

Still, she adds, “I am strong — maybe I’m just meant to love a lot of people in my life.”

The singer and fashion mogul found healing through making music in Nashville, where she began working in fall of 2023. 

“Having this creative outlet, it’s like your heart breaks and you go into a songwriting session – like going straight into therapy,” she reflects. “I have always said it was cheesy when people said the music saved my life but it truly saved mine.”

The new EP, 15 years since her last album, is made up of five soul and rockabilly-infused tunes. The first single “Use My Heart Against Me” dropped Friday. “It was a sexy song to write,” Simpson tells PEOPLE. “I had a lot of stuff written in my journals — stuff that I screengrabbed on my phone and would just give to my co-writers and they wove it together.”

The result is her most personal music yet. Of the entire EP, out March 21, she says, “I’d never be able to come back to music if I didn’t come at it from a soulful place. I knew for me, it was connecting to my roots.”

And Simpson’s excited by what’s ahead. “I have taken a very long break from being in the music industry,” she says. “The storytelling side of music is really what I gravitate towards the most. The songs speak for themselves. The music really does the talking.”

For more from Jessica Simpson, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands everywhere now.