Ariana Grande/Ethan Slater ‘tabloid drama’ explained as Lilly Jay speaks out

Wicked star Ethan Slater’s ex-wife Dr Lilly Jay has spoken out in The Cut about being unable to “escape” seeing Slater and his co-star Ariana Grande together.

Dr Lilly Jay has said that watching Ethan Slater promote the film alongside the woman he left her for – Grande – was a very painful reminder of the “public downfall of [her] marriage”.

In an essay written for The Cut, Dr Jay – who is a prominent clinical psychologist specialising in perinatal mental health and child development – said there were days where she couldn’t “escape the promotion of a movie associated with the saddest days of [her] life”.

“No-one gets married thinking they’ll get divorced, in the same way we don’t board a plane expecting to crash. I really never thought I would get divorced. Especially not just after giving birth to my first child and especially not in the shadow of my husband’s new relationship with a celebrity,” Dr Jay continued.

Slater and Grande have been dating since 2023, according to People, after meeting on the set of Wicked.

Grande plays Glinda in the hit musical adaptation while Slater plays the munchkin Boq. When they were both cast, Grande was married to real-estate agent Dalton Gomez while Slater was married to Dr Jay.

It was reported in July 2023 that Grande and Gomez had split up in January after they realised that things were not working out between them. The couple settled their divorce in October 2023, with TMZ writing that there “is still a strong mutual love and respect” between them.

Slater and Dr Jay were high-school sweethearts. They were married in 2018 and divorced in 2024.

Dr Jay revealed in her essay that she had moved to the UK with their newborn baby to “support” Slater as he filmed Wicked.

“I confidently moved to another country with my 2-month-old baby and my husband to support his career. Consumed by the magic and mundanity of new motherhood, I didn’t understand the growing distance between us,” Dr Jay wrote.

Dr Jay and Slater were separated by July 2023, and by October of last year, a source told US Weekly that Grande and Slater were living together.

The source said: “Ethan informed his friends and soon-to-be ex-wife that he’s living with Ariana full-time in New York. They’re really happy and really good for each other. All of her friends love him.”

From October onwards, Slater and Grande were seen publicly multiple times and the pop singer even included a photo of him in an Instagram photo dump to celebrate Christmas.

“Tabloid drama”

In her essay, Dr Lilly Jay writes: “Even as people from my past have reached out to say they saw my face in a tabloid, my patients have remained silent. Was some algorithmic or karmic force protecting my patients from seeing a tabloid drama in which I play the role of a voiceless ex-wife?”

It was in January of this year that Grande then released her latest hit single “Yes, And?” which appeared to be about the ongoing interest in her relationship with Slater.

In it, she sings: “Don’t comment on my body, do not reply // Your business is yours and mine is mine. Why do you care so much whose dick I ride?”

Another song on her recent album, “The Boy Is Mine”, is also thought to be about Slater.

More recently, Grande spoke out about the reporting of her relationship in an interview with Vanity Fair.

She said: “It definitely doesn’t get any easier, seeing some of the negativity that was birthed by disreputable tabloids.”

Grande explained that the “popular narrative” that was created by the papers in order to “pay their bills” wasn’t what really happened.

“The most disappointing part was to see so many people believe the worst version of it. That was definitely a tough ride,” she said, adding that Slater was a kind-hearted person overall.

Slater also said it was difficult to have their private relationship be so heavily scrutinised. In an interview with GQ two months ago, he said: “I think there was something that was really difficult about things in your private life being commented on and looked at by the public.”

“There were a lot of big changes in private lives that were really happening, so it’s really hard to see people who don’t know anything about what’s happening commenting on it and speculating, and then getting things wrong about the people you love. So just to address that part of it, that feels really hard,” Slater explained.

The pair attended the Los Angeles and New York premieres of Wicked together, and Slater later travelled to Grande’s hometown to watch the film with her family, which included her grandmother, Marjorie Grande, who was alive when The Wizard of Oz premiered too.

Just this month, Grande and Slater were spotted shopping for a Christmas tree in New York City, and a source told Page Six that the couple were happy “celebrating the success of Wicked and keeping things low-key as they enjoy the holiday season together”.