In a recent interview with Esquire, John Mellencamp looked back on the time he and Meg Ryan were together. At some point during the conversation, he made a confession about their relationship, expressing his regrets.
Mellencamp remembered his relationship with the actress fondly, but he still had things to admit about himself:
“I love Meg Ryan. I went with her for ten years. She doesn’t love me so much. She’s a great girl. I’m just a sh*tty boyfriend.”
Claiming that they helped each other come out of their shells, Mellencamp recalled:
“Meg Ryan had just come out of her shell; I had just come out of my shell. We started dating. And we decided to do things on our own instead of having people do stuff for us. We were so f*cking lost. We didn’t know how to do anything.”
According to the ‘Hurts So Good’ singer, their relationship taught Meg everything, but he didn’t get any lessons from it:
“I’ve never checked out of a hotel by myself. She and I went to a grocery store, and they wanted our credit card, and we looked at each other and said, ‘Here it is,’ 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 were, so hard we cried. I think she’s learned how to do everything, and I’ve learned how to do nothing.”
Ryan and Mellencamp first dated for three years before they broke up in August 2014. They rekindled their romance in May 2017 and became engaged one year after their reunion. Calling off their engagement, the couple finally broke up in 2019, one year after announcing plans to get married.
Speaking to Howard Stern in 2017, Mellencamp said the actress hates him because he is every bad thing a man can be. He lamented:
“Oh, women hate me. 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.”
After their final split, John moved on and began dating beauty expert Nurse Jamie Sherrill. Meg was reportedly hurt and heartbroken seeing the musician move on with someone else.
Various sources told People that the reason for their breakup was Mellencamp’s reluctance to marry again and his discomfort living in New York.