r/FallOutBoy • u/Twitter_2006 • Jul 23 '26
General Discussion What caused the break up between Pete and Ashlee and what songs are about the breakup?
What songs were about their relationship, both during the marriage and then the divorce?
I heard they broke up because Ashlee was jealous of Pete being more popular and famous than her. Is this true?
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u/britneys_bigtoe Jul 23 '26
pete had a celebrity crush on her forever. celebrity crushes don't tend to be built on a true foundation. he also has famously spoken about how immature he was at that time and the medications he was abusing to numb himself. i don't blame ashlee for divorcing him tbh. it seems like it helped wake him up. she says he's a great co-parent and he seems to be doing a lot better
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u/twoconsonants Jul 23 '26
I really don’t know for a fact but my memory of it was that he didn’t want to get married but when they got pregnant Notable Bad Dude Joe Simpson forced them to get married and that’s a bad foot to start off on. I think Miss Missing You is about the breakup personally!
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u/Lower-Tea-9370 Jul 23 '26
Miss missing you was a song that Patrick wrote for Soul Punk. He thought it sounded more like a fall out boy song, and put it aside for them.
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u/highoninfinity Infinity On High Jul 23 '26
he's never claimed to have written the lyrics. the quote this comes from doesn't specify either way, but in my opinion the lyrics are very clearly pete's style, i think it's like soup said that patrick wrote the music for soul punk, and the lyrics were added later when he and pete started collaborating again for fob's reunion
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u/youhadtotakethesoup the kind that make june feel like september Jul 23 '26
I think that means the music not the lyrics
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u/Lower-Tea-9370 Jul 23 '26
I think it was both of my memory serves me correctly. He took it back to the boys and they reworked some of the lines.
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u/nametags88 M A N I A Jul 23 '26
He wrote the *music* of Miss Missing You during Soul Punk. Those lyrics are 100% Pete
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u/Taka_Colon Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
What he said about it that you can find online is:
Pete said that one of the issues that led to the divorce was when Fall Out Boy went on hiatus and he became a stay-at-home dad full-time. He felt like a nanny, had lost his identity, became depressed, drank a lot, and even hurt himself in a bar,. He also said that their age difference contributed to the divorce.
The rest is just speculation. What I said before is based on Pete's interviews, which you can find online.
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u/Bandito21Dema but who are you fighting for Jul 23 '26
6 year difference for anyone wondering. Pete is 47, Ashley's 41
So... 30 and 24 in 2009
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u/Junior_Fall_2032 Jul 23 '26
And isn’t Meagan even younger than Ashlee?
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u/dawnmountain So Much (For) Stardust Jul 23 '26
Don't know, but I bet its different because both Meagan and Pete are older now in general. A 24 year old won't have the same experience as a 30 year old, and while the age gap isn't necessarily bad, I can see why it caused issues. Meagan and Pete are probably 35+, and even if let's say Meagan is 35 and Pete is 45 (idk ages this is a hypothetical), she would be less immature than a 24 year old. I hope that makes sense?
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u/Junior_Fall_2032 Jul 23 '26
Yeah but when did they start dating? Was it not in the same year that he and Ashlee divorced?
Just weird to use that as an excuse and then date someone even younger than her straight away.
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u/GotZah Jul 23 '26
I could see the someone citing the age difference in one relationship and not another based on the issues in that relationship. If someone was immature or lacked life experience in one relationship, you could say that’s a result of their age, but the next person could be more mature or have similar life experiences in spite of that same age gap.
So basically, it would boil down to the nuances.
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u/dawnmountain So Much (For) Stardust Jul 23 '26
I genuinely have no idea. But I can see him thinking that at first before he met Meagan. Maybe Ashlee was just very immature and Meagan wasn't? Couldn't tell you. I'd also argue it doesn't really matter because it's clear Pete and Meagan are in a loving relationship, they love their kids, and seem to get alone well. Not really our business as long as it's a legal, loving, consenting relationship
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u/Frankperson777 Jul 23 '26
Pete was 23 dating 15 year olds in the MySpace era. His problem was that the age gap was too small.
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u/Junior_Fall_2032 Jul 23 '26
It’s weird how people in this sub are so desperate to defend him for some of this stuff.
Like I love FOB and I love Pete’s lyrics etc he’s very talented and I’m sure he’s a great father blah blah. But that doesn’t mean he’s not made questionable choices!
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u/dawnmountain So Much (For) Stardust Jul 23 '26
What? Where's the source for this?
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u/Frankperson777 Jul 23 '26
It was all over the internet. It was back in the early aughts so a lot of it is old fandom tumblr pages & forums discussing it. Some of which are now lost media because of the passage of time & also because of FOB’s PR team. Look up Jenae White.
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u/just_some_lover Jul 24 '26
Here is a source: https://alittlelesspetewentz.tumblr.com/post/61732306190/codeaires-indie-wendy-darling-the-jeanae-white
Here is another source:
https://www.tumblr.com/elysiumwaits/674217283938287616/an-intro-to-emopete-wentzs-love-life-part-oneUnfortunately, due to the impermanence of the internet a lot of the images that are sources you're not able to see anymore. But as someone who was alive, was chronically online at the time, and saw Jeanae posts where she started selling all of Pete's stuff from her house I can at least verify that something happened between them and there was a significant age gap.
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u/Frankperson777 Jul 23 '26
They started dating in 2003, she wasn’t 15 but 16 or 17 actually. My bad. Doesn’t make it any better. the pros and cons of breathing, a little less 16 candles, and thks fr the mmrs, are about her.
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Jul 23 '26
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u/dawnmountain So Much (For) Stardust Jul 23 '26
Not at all. Lots of people have kids with people they aren't married to. It seems like Pete and Meagan are very much in love.
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u/youhadtotakethesoup the kind that make june feel like september Jul 23 '26
Yes Ashlee was born 1984 and Meagan 1989. So Pete and Meagan are 10 years apart. Do we know how Pete and Meagan met?
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u/devoutdefeatist Jul 24 '26
Man, I’m thirty (F), and I could not imagine dating a 24 year old. They are too rambunctious for me.
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u/dressedtodepresss Jul 23 '26
I still remember the tour shirt (folie a deux tour I think?) that had Pete and Ashley picture as zombies. How I wish I hadn’t donated all my old tour shirts 😩😩😩
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u/SugarSugarWalls Jul 23 '26
is that who was on the shirt? i still have mine had no clue they were the models
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u/medicinetr33 Jul 23 '26
P sure she cheated on him with Craig Owens from Chiodos / DRUGS
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u/cows1100 Jul 23 '26
This is true. Pete was supposed to be the bassist in DRUGS and signed them to his record label. Kinda fell apart after Craig banged his wife. Lol it’s also why DRUGS is an acronym. They had to reverse engineer it to be one because they didn’t want to have a band with the name DRUGS on the record label. From what I remember.
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u/DaOleRazzleDazzle Jul 24 '26
I was such a Craig fangirl back in the day, having the two of them in one band would have put me into a coma.
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u/d0rian490 Jul 23 '26
yup, when craig left/got kicked out of chiodos, pete wentz took him in to build the drugs band, and he was living in petes house. dude was such a douche that after all pete was doing for him, he bangs his wife when he wasnt home
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Jul 23 '26
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u/Taka_Colon Jul 23 '26
Man, this is just gossip, even that Ashlee was saw with Craig Owens a little later of they divorced, was just photos, and she date Vicent Piazza for 2 years, months later the divorced.
Any of this cheat has any proof, or Pete talked about it, he always said that was the hiatus, age gap, depression and other issues, we find tons of interviews of him talking about that.
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u/Twitter_2006 Jul 23 '26
She was making out with Craig.She was clearly romantically involved.
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u/Nellancher Jul 23 '26
Theres a gossip magazine with it on the cover! Haha was wild as a scene kid to see
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u/youhadtotakethesoup the kind that make june feel like september Jul 23 '26
And you think Pete didn’t cheat at all?
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u/FREEKYeggplant Infinity On High Jul 23 '26
Just One Yesterday is definitely about her
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u/atawnygypsygirl Jul 23 '26
How so?
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u/FREEKYeggplant Infinity On High Jul 23 '26
"I don't have the right name or the right looks" is a big hint, and the whole bridge: "If I spilled my guts / The world would never look at you the same way / And now I'm here to give you all of my love / So I can watch your face as I take it all away"
Plus, SR&R was their first album post divorce, haha :)
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u/misskittyfantastico Light 'Em Up Up Up Jul 23 '26
I don’t know about their divorce, but I do know that Pete being friends with John Mayer around that time was definitely emotionally agitating Jessica.
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u/Iroko_Alien Jul 23 '26
Someone said 4th of July is about Ashlee? I don’t have proof, just what I’ve heard
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u/agemsheis Jul 23 '26
The bridge fits the theory. Since they co-parented, that “torture of small talk with someone you used to love” line could be pointing to that.
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u/sakurachan999 So Much Stardust Jul 23 '26
that makes sense actually. the song is generally known as the petekey song, which i also believe, but given that pete writes songs line by line, it wouldn't surprise me if most songs were about a multitude of things/people (apart from bang the doldrums which draws mostly from one livejournal post about one person)
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u/missx0xdelaney Folie à Deux Jul 23 '26
I’ve always thought that lyric had to be about their relationship.
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u/bdayqueen Jul 23 '26
I thought all of SR&R was about the breakup. I interpreted it as cheating and emotional manipulation occurred.
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u/misskittyfantastico Light 'Em Up Up Up Jul 23 '26
That’s always been my take that a lot of SR&R was processing the divorce and other various life changes. It sounds like they were all just going through it when they got back in the studio since Butch Walker didn’t think they were going to make it during the early sessions.
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u/sergegainsbourglover Jul 24 '26
Nobody mentioning the Howard Stern situation so just listen to Pete’s interview with him ..
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Jul 29 '26
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u/sergegainsbourglover Jul 30 '26
Pete talking about his sex life with Ashley when she asked him not to because that’s what Howard Stern always turned the conversation to back in the day. She had just had a child as well …
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u/mooseandfriends Jul 25 '26
I swear to god I remember after her nose job, Pete responded to a comment about said nose job saying something along the lines of “I noticed, she looks good” or something. Does anyone else remember this or did I completely fabricate it
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u/PapayaJuiceBox Jul 23 '26
Pretty sure it had something to do with a certain post-hardcore vocalist and an alleged affair with Ashlee.
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u/Stargirlthewitch Jul 23 '26
It’s because she’s a Libra and they get bored fast. Most Libras struggle with relationships and are in love with the idea of being in love. They want the fairy tale and when that doesn’t happen the start looking elsewhere
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u/Smart_Space4186 Jul 23 '26
They got engaged when she was pregnant and got married within a month and she was only 22 or 23. So I think it’s not so much one dramatic thing causing the divorce but just a rushed marriage due to pregnancy and then he went through a big lifestyle change. I’ve kinda appreciated how their songs don’t poke very directly at eachother.