The singer/actress landed a role in the revamped version of the 1990s soap opera earlier this year (09), but it was announced in October (09) that her character Violet Foster would be written out of the series.

The tabloid press pounced on the news, portraying Simpson-Wentz’s axe as a career failure – but her dad Joe Simpson has come to the defence of the 25 year old, claiming the media will attack his showbiz family whatever they do.

He tells Usmagazine.com, “We as a family are under a lot of pressure. (People want) to make us look bad and want us to fail.

“(The Melrose Place axe) was never a loss. The world says whatever it says. (The world), again, always want to make it look like we’re failures but we’re really just a family that works hard.”

And the family patriarch is proud of the way Ashlee and her older sister Jessica Simpson deal with the harsh criticism: “My children look at ups and downs and rise up above it all and remain strong…We’re just normal people, and we always try to be who we say we are.”

Simpson-Wentz has since bounced back from the acting disappointment by making her Broadway debut in Chicago as Roxie Hart, reprising the role she first played on London’s West End in 2006.

Ashlee Simpson-Wentz is apparently set to make a sexy exit from Melrose Place.

The actress and singer plays crazy Violet but has been cut from the drama, as has Colin Egglesfield, who plays Auggie Kirkpatrick – and it seems their characters will appear in a “crazy naked” sex scene before they leave.

Colin told E! Online: “It involves us both wearing half-loin cloths that they had to tape to us, there are very few clothes involved in the near future.”

The actor said of Ashlee’s character in the show: “She’s up for anything.”

The characters apparently have two romps, in which they end up almost completely naked, before they leave the show around episode 13.

But Colin doesn’t predict Violet and Auggie walking hand-in-hand happily into the sunset together.

He said: “Things get pretty violent and kind of crazy. Auggie ends up hitting the bottle and falls off the deep end a little bit.”