Mark Hoppus wants everyone to know his memoir isn’t one of those books that throws down a gauntlet and reignites a whole bunch of beefs. Especially not with his Blink-182 bandmates! Well, he hopes at least…
Speaking to People on Monday, the rocker spoke about his new book Fahrenheit-182 and how it’s a tell-all — but it’s not that kind of tell-all. When asked if he gave any of the celebs he talks about in the book — like Melissa Joan Hart or Alyssa Milano — a heads up. He said no, but that’s a good thing:
“I didn’t, but because there’s no gossip, ‘gotcha,’ demons or anything in the book. There are stories that are told of joy and friendship and love, and it was very important when I was writing the book for there not to be villains in the book because I don’t feel like there’s been villains or bad people necessarily in my life. There’ve been people that I’ve disagreed with at different times, and I’ve come to understand, but I wasn’t trying to have a pull quote or a juicy gossip thing.”
Why dish the dirt on the dating stories then? He explained:
“The [stories] with Alyssa and with Melissa were important for me to tell because I’m just this skate rat that grew up in the middle of the desert with literally 12,000 people. An average Blink show now has more people than the city that I grew up in, and all of a sudden I’m in Los Angeles, and there’s people who are legitimately famous actors [and] actresses that want to be friends and want to go out on dates or want to hang out. I was just blown away. It wasn’t to illustrate like, ‘Oh, I’m so rad.’ It was more like, ‘I can’t believe that this is my life and the cool things like this happened to me.’ So, I didn’t really feel like I needed to give anyone a heads-up because that’s not the intent of the story in the first place.”
OK, but what about the big one? The feud with Tom DeLonge??
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See, there was a huge feud between Mark and his bandmate for over a decade! Tom first quit the band back in 2005… Then they reunited from 2009 to 2014. But then they split again in 2015. And that was a much more permanent — and dramatic — break. Mark and Travis Barker released a statement saying the band was getting back together — but replacing Tom with Alkaline Trio‘s Matt Skiba. They also spoke to Rolling Stone, calling their former friend “ungrateful” and “disingenuous”. Tom wrote a letter saying he “never quit the band” — implying they were being duplicitous with their new lineup rollout.
Whatever schism had been quietly growing behind the scenes got really public really fast. So messy.
But it all got resolved with a most unexpected plot twist. In 2021, Mark was diagnosed with cancer. And when Tom had to call him for some legal detail, he learned about his old friend’s condition… and they finally were able to heal the rift.
However, in a memoir… you write about all the ugly parts, too, the fights and everything, you have to tell it how you experienced it. So is Mark nervous for Tom to read the book? He assured the outlet:
“No, because there’s nothing that I’ve written in the book that I haven’t said to Tom’s face or talked to him about since then. Tom is really cool, and a really good friend, and I think that the way that I wrote the book doesn’t make Tom out to be a villain because again, he’s not; he’s my best friend. But we’ve definitely gone through some s**t together.”
Awww!
Also, though, he doesn’t really expect Tom or Travis to read it! LOLz! He mused:
“I don’t think that either of them has read the book, and that’s totally cool. I didn’t want to assign them 400 pages of homework by writing this book. As soon as I got copies, I sent them to Tom and Travis and I said, ‘Hey, I’m sending copies to you guys to have to put up on a shelf, to give away, whatever it is. This book is a love letter to our band, to you guys, our friendship and everything we’ve gotten to do together.’ If they take the time to read it, great. If not, then it doesn’t hurt my feelings or anything. They’ve lived it. They don’t need to read it. They’ve been there the whole time. They know all the good and bad about me.”
Well, it sounds like there’s more we should dig into! Fahrenheit-182 is available now!
[Image via Mark Hoppus/Instagram.]
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