John Mellencamp Talks About Being a Bad Boyfriend to Meg Ryan

John Mellencamp and Meg Ryan had an on-again-off-again relationship for a decade. The couple was very private, and little is known about their relationship, but the singer-songwriter briefly talked about it to Esquire.

In the publication's "What I've Learned" feature, Mellencamp says, "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."

Mellencamp and Ryan were together for four years, from 2010-2014, when they first split. The couple then got back together in the spring of 2017. Ryan went public with her engagement to Mellencamp in November 2018 in a since-deleted Instagram post of a doodle of the couple along with the caption, "ENGAGED!" They then split up in October 2019. US Weekly reported at the time Ryan "had enough" and ended the engagement and apparently has “no regrets” on the decision. What exactly Ryan "had enough" of wasn’t divulged by US Weekly’s source.

Mellencamp did share a funny story about when he and Ryan first got together. He said, "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."

He continued, "We didn’t know how to do anything. I’ve never checked out of a hotel by myself. 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,' 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."

Rock and roll has taught the world many lessons. Perhaps one of its most underrated is this: You don't have to be tall to be a giant rock star.

In fact, some of the biggest names in rock history could be classified as "short kings."

What's a "short king" you may ask? First coined by comedian/writer Jaboukie Young-White, a short king is a slang term of endearment for a man who is under 5'9", according to Urban Dictionary.

Scroll through the gallery below to see some of rock's greatest short kings.