On April 14, Us Weekly and OK! magazine reported that Ashlee Simpson is pregnant. Pete Wentz promptly denied this in an e-mail to MTV News, “There is a witch hunt for people to be pregnant whenever they get engaged in Hollywood,” he wrote. “This is all news to me. I can’t wait for the story about how I’m really in a gay relationship and this is all just a cover. ... I mean really, this is crazy. ... I mean we’re engaged, that’s true, and happy about it.” Asked again if he was denying reports that Ashlee Simpson is pregnant, Wentz, 28, replied, “Yeah.”

Simpson, however, in an interview the next day, chose neither to confirm nor deny the report, saying that it was something to “keep personal”, and added that rumours claiming she was pregnant had been appearing for so long that, if they were all true, she “would have had a baby by now”.

Simpson is currently engaged to Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz. The two were first seen together in late 2006. Initially, they denied being in a relationship, although there was much speculation about this. In an interview for OK! magazine in late 2006, Simpson denied the speculation. While in an interview with Pete Wentz on Ryan Seacrest’s American Top 40 live, Seacrest asked if Wentz and Simpson were “on” or “off”, and Wentz laughed and said “off”. In a Rolling Stone photo shoot, however, Wentz and Simpson took a picture together for the opening of Wentz’ bar, Angels & Kings, and were labelled as a “couple”.

Eventually, the two began to acknowledge the relationship. In mid-2007 Wentz spoke about their relationship to InTouch magazine, saying of Simpson that “I have never met somebody who makes me feel the way she makes me feel”, although he denied rumours of engagement. The couple announced that they were engaged on April 9, 2008. Simpson had previously been wearing what she described as a “promise ring” from Wentz for several months.

Their differing comments on the pregnancy issue, however, highlights the fact that they are not on the same wavelength, and might just be a presage of yet another Hollywood relationship that fails to last the distance.