Jesse James and Kat Von D Split

Jesse James and Kat Von D

Albert L. Ortega/PictureGroup

Jesse James and Kat Von D have called off their engagement and broken up.



”I’m so sad because I really love her,” James tells PEOPLE exclusively. “The distance between us was just too much.”



James, 42, and the LA Ink star were engaged in January and had been planning a summer wedding around the one-year anniversary of when they started dating.



But the commute between Los Angeles, where Von D, 29, shoots her reality show, and James’s home outside of Austin, Texas, where he lives with his kids, Chandler, 16, Jesse Jr., 14, and Sunny, 7, proved to be too much.



Von D confirmed the split on Twitter.

“I am no longer w Jesse,” she writes, “and out of respect for him, his family and myself, thats all the info I’d like to share. Thanks for respecting that.”