There’s no need to wonder why Meg Ryan and John Mellencamp split up after almost 10 years of an on-and-off relationship—the musician takes the blame. In a new interview with Esquire, Mellencamp opened up about the When Harry Met Sally star, who he was first linked to in 2010. The couple eventually got engaged, but they called things off in 2019 before they could walk down the aisle.
Mellencamp told the magazine that Ryan “doesn’t love [him] so much,” because he was a bad boyfriend to her. Read on to learn more about their relationship and what else the “Jack & Diane” singer had to say about why their longtime romance ended.
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Ryan and Mellencamp made headlines for their new relationship at the end of 2010. They dated for around three-and-a-half years, until August 2014. A source told People at the time that they split because of their long-distance relationship: Mellencamp lived in Indiana, while Ryan resided in New York.
In September 2014, Mellencamp hinted that they might get back together during an appearance on Today. “Meg’s an angel. She’s an angel sent to me, and I’m very happy. And, you know, nothing’s over ’til it’s over,” he said (via E! News),
A couple of years later, in March 2017, he seemed much less hopeful about their future. “Oh, women hate me,” Mellencamp said on The Howard Stern Show (via Extra). “I loved Meg Ryan. She hates me to death. I think it’s because I’m a child. I throw fits, I gripe, I complain. I’m moody. Every bad thing that a fella can be, that’s me.”
Asked if he tried to get on good terms with Ryan, he responded, “I’ve done that. She just doesn’t want anything to do with me. And I can’t blame her.”
Despite Mellencamp’s assumption that Ryan was finished with him, they got back together later in 2017. And in 2018, the reunited couple got engaged.
“I’m engaged at 67 to a very funny woman, the funniest woman I ever met,” Mellencamp told Today in 2018.
The following year, Ryan opened up—albeit briefly—about the engagement in an interview with InStyle (via Entertainment Tonight). “Yes, I’m going to get married at some point,” the You’ve Got Mail star said. “But for now this engagement thing is a state of grace.”
It wouldn’t have been the first marriage for either star. Ryan was married to Dennis Quaid from 1991 to 2001. Mellencamp has been married three times: to Priscilla Esterline from 1970 to 1981, to Victoria Granucci from 1981 to 1989, and to Elaine Irwin from 1992 to 2011 (they’d separated a year earlier).
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Mellencamp and Ryan’s engagement didn’t last, however. In November 2019, it was reported that they’d split up. Now, he takes all the blame for the end of their relationship.
“I love Meg Ryan. I went with her for 10 years,” he told Esquire. “She doesn’t love me so much. She’s a great girl. I’m just a [expletive] boyfriend.”
Ryan, who keeps her life pretty private these days—her last movie role was in 2015’s Ithica—has not commented publicly about the breakup.
Mellencamp also told Esquire what it was like when he and Ryan first started dating.
“Meg Ryan had just come out of her shell; I had just come out of my shell,” the 71-year-old said. “We started dating. And we decided to do things on our own instead of having people do stuff for us. We were so [expletive] lost. We didn’t know how to do anything. I’ve never checked out of a hotel by myself.”
Their confusion extended to how to pay for groceries, he explained. “Her and I went to a grocery store, and they wanted our credit card, and we looked at each other and said, ‘Here it is,'” Mellencamp recalled, “and they said, ‘No, you’ve got to put it in this thing,’ and we went, ‘Then what happens?’ We laughed at how stupid we are, so hard we cried. I think she’s learned how to do everything, and I’ve learned how to do nothing.”
One of Mellencamp’s five children is Teddi Mellencamp Arroyave, a former cast member of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. In 2022, she commented on her father’s split from Ryan in an interview with Julie Chen Moonves.
“I loved her so much,” Mellencamp Arroyave said of Ryan. “They were together, like, eight or so years. And she is such an incredible person still to this day, like, I loved the time that they spent together. They lit each other up, and I think they really respected each other and really had fun with each other, and I love her. Not to mention, growing up she was in every favorite movie I ever had, so… having to reel in that fangirl was tough.”