2003–2005: A Present for Everyone and split

Busted started the summer of 2003 with a win for Favourite Newcomer at the National Music Awards, as well as Best Band at that year's Disney Channel Kids' Awards. After this, the band launched the promotional trailer for their new album, A Present for Everyone and it's lead single "Crashed the Wedding", which reached number one on the UK chart. More edgy than their previous album, 'Simpson said that it had some "harder, Good Charlotte type vibes coming through on this album".

This album would also go on to reach sales of over 1 million copies.

During 2003, Charlie met fellow songwriter-guitarist Alex Westaway and drummer Omar Abidi at a party. He was by this stage becoming increasingly frustrated by the music he was performing in Busted and stated he had "all of this creativity pent up inside and I just needed to vent it somewhere, and I was writing a lot of songs but I couldn't play them, because I didn't have anyone to play them with". During the aforementioned party, an impromptu jam session took place. 'Simpson, 'Westaway and 'Abidi played Rage Against the Machine's song "Killing in the Name" on loop, and agreed to attend a gig a few days later. After the show, they went back to Simpson's flat and began performing on guitars and a v-drum kit, which led to their first song being written, titled "Too Much Punch". 'Westaway later invited bassist Dan Haigh to practise with the band and soon began booking regular rehearsal sessions together, under the name "Fightstar".

2004 was to prove their final year together as a band. The band performed a successful arena tour to start the year before reaching number one and number three with "Who's David?" and "Air Hostess" respectively. The band picked up Best British Breakthrough Act and Best Pop Act at that year's Brit Awards.

The band then headed over to America to release a self-titled album that was a mixture of their first and second album. Their exploits were captured for the TV series America or Busted, about Busted's attempts to achieve success in the United States, which ultimately failed. The show debuted on MTV UK in November of that year, over the course of the series, it saw Busted's attempts to 'break' America dwindle as interviews fell through and performances remained limited both in terms of audience size and press attention.

While the band were out in America, they were then invited to record the theme tune to the brand new Thunderbirds film that was coming out that summer.

Released as a double A-side with the album track, "3am", it gave them their fourth and final number one in August 2004, staying at the top for two weeks, the longest they had ever spent at the top. However, the release of the fifth single from their second album, "She Wants to Be Me" failed to chart due to its lone formats being a download and a limited edition pocket sized CD, both of which breached chart regulations at the time. Their live album "A Ticket for Everyone" in November peaked at number eleven. The band embarked on another sell-out tour that November, and Busted gained a record of the band to play the most consecutive sellout dates at Wembley Arena, eleven nights. At the end of 2004, Busted were involved in the UK number-one Christmas single, Band Aid 20's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" with money raised helping to combat HIV and AIDS across Africa, famine relief in the Darfur region of Sudan and aid relief in many countries, such as Ethiopia.

'Simpson's time spent with Fightstar reportedly began to cause tensions within the band, amplified when Fightstar announced a 14-date UK tour. 'Simpson announced to Busted's manager on December 24th 2004 over a phone call that he was leaving the band to focus on Fightstar full-time. On January 13th 2005, Busted's record label announced that a press conference was to be held at the Soho Hotel in London the following day. The next day, (the 14th) it was then announced that Busted were splitting up after 'Simpson's departure weeks before.

In a recent interview, 'Simpson said "It was a real fun thing to be doing, and I got on well with everyone I was doing it with, but on the other side, the music wasn't really fulfilling me. I have good memories of the time, because we were traveling the world and doing some amazing things, but then as far as self-fulfillment goes, it wasn't really doing alot for me, so I have these mixed views when I look back. But there's no doubt that it was an amazing thing to do.