Meg Ryan and John Mellencamp simply couldn’t make it last.
Did it end over a temper tantrum? Anxiety? And who was the one to officially call it quits?
Don’t go anywhere, because the answers await!
Meg Ryan's love life doesn't include a long list of partners,
but the ones in it drew plenty of public attention. The You've Got Mail actor saw
herself in the center of a media firestorm in 2000 when she became linked to New Zealand-born
Australian actor Russell Crowe. As The Sun noted, Ryan and Crowe met on the set
of the film Proof of Life ... when she was still legally married to actor Dennis Quaid.
As the it-couple of the 1990s, the collapse of their marriage amid speculation of Ryan's
involvement with the Gladiator star broke our collective hearts and tarnished the image of
America's sweetheart in the eyes of many. In the November 2000 issue of W magazine, Ryan said:
"So this is what it feels like to be the Scarlet Woman."
In the same interview, Ryan denied that her short-lived fling with Crowe qualified as
infidelity because her marriage was over way before the news became public in mid-2000.
She put the whole thing behind her and remained private about her personal life for about a
decade. That is, until the public caught wind of her budding relationship with musician
John Mellencamp, whom she had been "quietly" dating for weeks, as reported by People in
January 2011. They embarked on a rocky on-again, off-again relationship and, once again, the media
couldn't get enough. The tempestuousness of the romance eventually proved too much for the couple.
The news that Meg Ryan was dating John Mellencamp surfaced after the two were seen at her favorite
coffee shop on Martha's Vineyard and shopping together at a grocery store in New York City,
according to People. They seemed to hit it off from
the get-go. One source told People at the time:
"She usually comes in by herself or with her daughter. I thought that was her husband because
they seemed so comfortable and familiar with each other, just like an old married couple."
Ryan and Mellencamp kept their relationship going strong, albeit discreetly, for nearly four
years. In mid-2014, they broke up for the first time, People reported. According to an insider,
the couple had been struggling to manage the physical distance. The source told People:
"[Meg] lives in New York and [John] resides in Indiana.
It was the long distance that ultimately was the cause."
Mellencamp told Rolling Stone that living in the Big Apple was not an option:
"I'm too sensitive to live there. I can't see poor people. I can't see the suffering.
I can't see the trash on the streets."
It looked like the end. However, as Page Six noted,
Ryan and Mellencamp rekindled their romance in 2017, even though the musician had told
Howard Stern months earlier that he was in Ryan's bad book. In Mellencamp’s own words:
"She hates me to death."
Clearly, however, that wasn't the case. The relationship blossomed after Meg Ryan and
John Mellencamp reunited in 2017. In fact, the two even got engaged in November 2018,
as CNN reported at the time. But less than a year later,
Ryan and Mellencamp announced that they had called off the engagement. After they split
the first time in 2014, a source told Closer Weekly that Mellencamp struggled to handle
Ryan's fame and the spotlight that was put on him as a result. The source told the outlet:
"I don't think he loved all the attention he got just from dating an actress.
I bet he'll stay away from dating another famous person for a while."
Mellencamp had an issue with fame since the beginning of his career.
In a 2013 interview with Rolling Stone, the musician opened up about suffering
from severe anxiety following his rise to stardom in the mid-1980s. Mellencamp told the magazine:
"This was the peak of my success, but I didn't enjoy any of it."
On the other hand, Mellencamp also admitted to Howard Stern that he has a difficult personality,
which tended to cause issues in his relationships. The singer told Stern:
"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."
"One can well imagine I'm probably not the easiest guy to get along with."
In fact, the source who spoke with Us Weekly in 2019
said that Ryan was the one who ended the relationship.
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