Mark Hoppus reveals text that reconnected Blink-182

Mark Hoppus has shared that a text message exchange between him and Tom DeLonge played a key role in rekindling their friendship and ultimately led to DeLonge’s return to Blink-182.

While appearing on iHeartRadio’s Elvis Duran Show, Hoppus opened up about how the two reconnected after years without contact. Surprisingly, it was DeLonge who reached out first—unaware that he was about to learn about Hoppus' cancer diagnosis. During their conversation, Hoppus reflected on the rocky, on-again-off-again nature of their friendship and explained what brought them back together following DeLonge’s most recent departure from the band.

Hoppus told Duran, “It was four years ago when Tom texted me out of the blue and says, ‘Hey, I’m directing this new video from Angels & Airwaves’ and he sent me a photo of him at a music video shoot that he was directing and of course it’s him in front of a bunch of models in their underwear." "And I replied, ‘Ha, Ha, that’s awesome man. Hey by the way I have cancer and I start chemotherapy,’” he then added.

“That was the first real text exchange I’d had with Tom in a number of years and immediately the phone rings and I pick up and it’s Tom and I say hello and he says (in serious voice) ‘How are you?’ So the past four years disappeared and it was just back to square one, back to friends.”

Hoppus admitted to Duran, “There were several times when I thought I’m not gonna talk with Tom again.”

He continued, "When Tom left the band the first time, we didn’t speak for five years. Same thing the second time. So there were numbers of years where I just wouldn’t even talk with Tom and there was so much acrimony on both sides.”

“But the cool thing is when we got back together both times, the first time was after Travis [Barker] had his plane crash and the second time was after I was sick with cancer, he calls up and it’s like none of the bad things even happened at all. We snap back into best friend mode and that’s how Tom has been.”