We can all agree that Ryan McCartan‘s new album is full of bops. The former Liv and Maddie star dropped a brand new EP, called Seventh Avenue, on September 20, and we cannot stop listening to it! But ever since it came out, there’s been one question on everyone’s minds. And that is — are any of his new songs about his ex-girlfriend, Dove Cameron? Well guys, the Broadway actor just spilled all the tea on how his past relationships shaped the new tunes exclusively to J-14.
“I’ve always sort of thought of my music as sort of like diary entries. It’s always important to me whenever I release a piece of work that it reflects something very real that either has happened or is happening to me,” he told us. “The reason that I write [music] — that tiny moment where I write it, where I put the pen to paper and make the lyrics and sing the song for the first time, that’s for me. And that is my therapy. And then I release it and some people try to take guesses [on who it’s about] because, you know, we live in an age of social media and everyone thinks they know everything, but they don’t and that’s fine.”
“I think what’s more critically important is beyond that, the people who hear it and think, ‘Oh, this actually reminds me of something that happened to me.’ It’s transcendent,” he continued. “I, Ryan, wrote this song for me. I submitted it out into the world and then hundreds if not thousands of people hear it and create their own opinions, create their own stories, based on music that has nothing to do with them. Then it becomes about them, and that’s why music is such an amazing artistic medium.”
As fans know, the 26-year-old starred in the Broadway production of Wicked in 2018, and he explained that the album was actually inspired by that time in his life.
“I lived on seventh avenue here in New York last year when I made my Broadway debut in Wicked and that nine months of my life, doing Wicked, I grew so much as a person. I crossed a major item off of my bucket list by making my Broadway debut. The oldest dream I ever had was to be on Broadway, and so it just felt like this really critical time of Ryan McCartan as a human,” the former Disney star said. “And so when I got home from New York, when I was back in Los Angeles where my studio was and I was inspired to create some music … it felt really fitting that I write some music about that phase of my life. Because there’s all the public occupational things that were happening to me in association to making my Broadway debut, but as is the case with life, there were a lot of private things that were happening as well that I wanted to include in this kind of diary entry and love letter to that phase of my life. From all of that, Seventh Avenue was born.”
Dove and Ryan were the ultimate Disney Channel power couple back in the day. They fell for each other on set of Liv and Maddie and they even got engaged at one point! But things didn’t end too well for them. After their split in 2016, it got pretty messy. Dove claimed Ryan had treated her badly during their relationship, and he accused the actress of cheating on him with her current boyfriend, Thomas Doherty.
Love J-14? Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel for fun, exclusive videos with your favorite stars.
