In her new book, Jessica Simpson shares how she grappled with her understanding of faith while deciding to tell her father about being abused.

Simpson's new book, Open Book, shares her struggles with abuse, alcoholism, and body image.

"I just didn’t know how to do it."

She says when she was 6 years old, she was sexually assaulted by a young girl close to her family and had difficulty talking about it.

"I was a preacher's daughter,'' Simpson tells TODAY. "I was taught to be a virgin until I got married, and so I never wanted to share these sexual things that were happening because I didn't want to hurt anybody."

Simpson eventually opened up to her parents about the events and received their support.

"That's a heavy thing to hear from your child," Simpson says.

After speaking about her experience on TODAY, Simpson performed "Amazing Grace," adding that the song is about "walking through fear and it being okay to be afraid... the other side of fear is what's so beautiful. That's when you get the reward."

As a preacher's daughter, Simpson struggled to understand why she was being asked to wear crop tops and lose weight when she started in the music business.

Teresa LaBarbera Whites, the Columbia A&R executive who helped sign the singer, tells the Los Angeles Times that Simpson's "innocence" is what attracted them to her.

"I had so many people pushing me to surpass these crazy numbers of records that these girls were selling and I just didn’t know how to do it,” Simpson tells the Los Angeles Times.

Simpson's book discussing her life in the spotlight was released yesterday.