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With a concerned Nick Lachey watching from afar as his treasured source of lifelong alimony payments is thrown into peril, the $100 million Jessica Simpson jeans lawsuit shows no sign of going away. A Defamer operative brave enough to go deep undercover as a manicure customer sends us this second-hand reconnaissance of a suspicious Simpson ass-photography session:

My friend and I were getting mani/pedi's in Studio City and as we were checking out, the receptionist told us she'd just returned from Mexicali (popular restaurant/bar on Ventura Boulevard) where she saw Jessica Simpson.

Nail Salon girl: "Her friend was taking pictures of her butt!"

Defamer reader: "hmmmm was she wearing jeans? Did you notice if there was anything on the pockets?"

Nail Salon girl: "yeah! she was wearing jeans and there was something embroidered on the back pockets, I couldn't make it out. It was so weird, she was posing for her friend taking close-up shots of her butt"

We're looking forward to a snippet in US Weekly about how a "fan" snuck a photo of Jessica Simpson hanging out in the Valley and look what she was wearing?! Her very own line of jeans!"

It's an excellent theory, and if her legal team should produce "People's Exhibit A: Photograph of Defendant proudly sporting a pair of her own Princy brand jeans in plain view of an adoring public at popular Mexican eatery," we'll know from whence it came. Then again, this may have been entirely lawsuit-unrelated: Simpson's "friend" could merely have been an assistant whose soul function is to photograph her ass every few hours, then electronically transmit the pictures to manager/father Joe Simpson to carefully analyze the celebrated body part, and determine if a glute-specializing trainer needs to be called in for a tune-up.