Jason Derulo and Jordin Sparks have reportedly split up

By Christie D’Zurilla

Sept. 25, 2014 4:52 PM PT

Jason Derulo and Jordan Sparks have split after three years together, according to reports out Thursday.

The split was mutual and the singers are still friends, E! News said, noting that multiple sources had confirmed the breakup. The two were first linked in fall 2011, but their relationship wasn’t confirmed until January 2012.

The two were most recently spotted doing the red-carpet couple thing in late August at the MTV Video Music Awards, where they both appeared in white outfits — he said he took her lead after he saw the dress she’d chosen — and looked cozy in front of the cameras.

“American Idol” winner Sparks, who’s also an actress with a movie, “Left Behind,” opening in October, was sad after the split, a source told Gossip Cop.

That makes sense: At the VMAs, she’d explained the role he played in her songwriting.

“When you can’t stop thinking about someone, when you’re going to write a song, you end up writing about them,” Sparks said on the red carpet. “The good, the bad, the in-between, you write about all of it.”

She inspired her former beau as well, notably to write his song “Marry Me.”

R&B singer Derulo had “proposed” to her a year ago in the tune’s emotionally intimate video, which saw a big brand-name ring placed on her finger — one of several rather obvious product placements — by the time the song ended.

Now, that engagement wasn’t real, but he told MTV News in April that before the video came out there had been pressure on him to pop the question and that afterward it increased.

“I wrote the song because of the pressure, and then I made the pressure worse because people just listen to the chorus and all they hear is ‘Will you marry me?,’” Derulo said.

“So they’re like ‘Oh, you’re proposing.’ I’m like, ‘No.’ In the song I’m saying when the time is right, I’m saying we have the rest of our lives. So the perfect time is on its way.”

Alas, it seems it wasn’t.

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