Although Ryan McCartan brought attention to his split with Descendants star Dove Cameron this week, more than three years after they ended their engagement, the singer is now hoping to move on from the drama. McCartan appeared to accuse her of cheating on him during their relationship, and Cameron responded with by retweeting a message about “toxic people.” The two Disney Channel stars were engaged for six months before breaking up in October 2016.
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On Friday, McCartan, 26, posted a long message on his Instagram page “in response to current social media stories.” McCartan wrote he is “no longer comfortable watching the events of my life become so darkly misconstrued,” so he decided to speak out.
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“I think Dove and I fundamentally agree about our relationship with one another,” McCartan wrote. “We were young, and immature. Our relationship was dysfunctional. We were a bad match.”
“She has made claims about me and about our past that I don’t think are fair or even true, but she is entitled to her opinion,” he continued. “I have made claims about her and our past that I’m sure she doesn’t think are fair or true, but I am entitled to my opinion. We have individual and conflicting perspectives on the dysfunction of our relationship. That is very normal amongst exes.”
McCartan said he wishes Cameron “nothing but the best” and is “grateful for our relationship” because he “learned what love is by learning what it isn’t.”
“People are allowed to be young and make mistakes,” he wrote. “People are allowed to grow up and grow apart.”
McCartan then attempted to shoot down rumors that the two are still arguing with each other.
“We are not at war with one another,” he wrote. “This vortex of repetitive conflict is the result of freely and peacefully sharing our individual perspectives on our past, which is almost always followed by a myriad of social media posts creating a fight where there isn’t one. Some of these outlets make their money on ads, clicks and controversy, and if they don’t have a story, they manufacture one. Any claims of lasting or current conflict between me and my previous partner have been methodically manufactured, and are baseless.”
“This paradigm is one that exists all over the social media landscape,” he concluded. “It is my hope that consumers of social media will use this as an example to guard themselves against bias and hyperbole, and to increase their social media fluency in an increasingly untruthful world.”
Cameron, 24, and McCartan’s relationship came back into the spotlight after McCartan accused her of cheating on him on Thursday. A fan asked what his proudest moment was, and mentioned leaving Cameron.
“Within two weeks, my fiancรฉe cheated on and left me, I almost died from food poisoning, and Donald Trump was elected president,” McCartan wrote at the time. “I truly didn’t think I would be able to make it through that part of my life.”
He continued, “I’m proudest of the light that came from the darkness. And my ability to survive and turn the anger and sadness I had into positive life changes and a new way forward.”
Late Thursday night, Cameron appeared to respond to the allegations when she retweeted a message, adding the caption, “Beautiful.”
“When a toxic person can no longer control you, they will try to control how others see you,” the message read. “The misinformation will feel unfair, but stay above it, trusting that other people will eventually see the truth, just like you did.”
Photo credit: Rick Rowell/Disney Channel via Getty Images