Evan Ross asked Ashlee Simpson's ex-boyfriend for permission to date her.

The 30-year-old actor and musician married Ashlee - with whom he has three-year-old daughter Jagger - in 2014, but her former boyfriend Ryan Cabrera has revealed Evan came to his house to ask if it was okay for him to start dating the singer.

Ryan, 36, explained: ''I happened to be asleep at the time. He specifically came to my house to come have a chat and be like, 'Yo, I wanted to see what you thought about it. Is everything good?' He knew that I'd be, like, 'Oh! All right, cool.'''

The singer-songwriter has remained close with Ashlee, 34, since their split and is ''best friends'' with Evan, so says they've all ''remained friends''.

Speaking to TooFab, Ryan added: ''She ended up marrying one of my best friends. How it all happened? Who knows. ... L.A. and us all as artists and singers and actors and entertainers essentially, it's a very small family. Obviously, everybody knows everybody, for the most part. And me and Ashlee were always really, really close. Like, our breakup was pretty ... pretty, pretty smooth - other than a couple of things. But we remained friends, like, very shortly after we broke up, and then remained friends from that point on. And we were always cool.''

Meanwhile, Ashlee - who also has 10-year-old son Bronx with ex-husband Pete Wentz - recently said she was experiencing baby fever after her sister Jessica Simpson gave birth to her daughter Birdie in March.

The 'Ashlee + Evan' star said: ''I'm not pregnant, but it definitely gave me the fever a little bit.''

The 'Pieces of Me' hitmaker said baby Birdie is ''so cute'', and revealed Jessica's other two children - Maxwell, six, and Ace, five - are already doting on their little sister.

Ashlee added: ''Oh my gosh, she is so cute. Little Birdie. The kids were so cute - Jessica's kids with their little baby sister.''