Tom DeLonge talks friendship with Blink-182’s Mark Hoppus

Rockers Tom DeLonge and Mark Hoppus, both founding members of Blink-182, were not in a good place when the band went on an indefinite hiatus in 2005 or when DeLonge left the band for good in 2015. But the challenges in their lives have changed all that.

DeLonge, who filed for divorce from his wife of 18 years in 2019, told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe that it happened after his former bandmate was diagnosed with cancer — specifically, late-stage diffuse large B-cell lymphoma — in April.

“The way the universe works is strange because I reached out to Mark because I needed him to sign this piece of paper that had to do with my divorce,” DeLonge said, per People. “Only because of that call did I learn he had cancer. And he told me on the phone. I was like, ‘Wait, what?’ And we weren’t really talking much at all, maybe once every couple of months, a little text here and there.”

That has changed drastically.

“Now, we talk multiple times a day,” DeLonge said. “So it’s like we’ve been able to completely repair that friendship and really cut to the depth of who we are as people and what this is all about.”

When Hoppus initially shared his health status in June, DeLonge offered him public support.

“I too, have been aware of @markhoppus’s cancer diagnosis for awhile now,” DeLonge wrote on social media. “And to add to his own words that he used today, I would also like to say that he is strong, and a super-human who is pushing through this difficult obstacle with a wide-open heart.”

DeLonge explained that dealing with divorce and its effects on his teenage children, 19-year-old daughter Ava and son Jonas, 15, was “really sad and tragic.” It prompted DeLonge, whose current music project, Angels and Airwaves, releases the album Lifeforms on Friday, to “figure out who I am, deep down in a visceral DNA level.”

In the new interview, DeLonge offered an update on his friend, who reported in July that his treatment, chemotherapy, was working.

“He’s had a really difficult time,” DeLonge said, “but he’s doing really good right now, in the sense of where the cancer is gone, as far as we know, and the chemo worked really well.”

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