Ex-Wife of Ariana Grande's New Beau Speaks

As reports surfaced of a relationship between Wicked co-stars Ariana Grande and Ethan Slater last summer, there was much focus on when Grande had separated from her husband, Dalton Gomez, and when Slater had split with his wife, Lilly Jay. Now, we have more detail from Jay herself. "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," the clinical psychologist writes Thursday in an essay at the Cut, noting she's "puzzled alone, for nearly two years, about what to say as someone who is, by personality and profession, equally allergic to being the center of attention and to being erased."

She doesn't name Slater or Grande but notes she was thrust into a "season of shock and mourning" in 2023 with the end of her marriage to her "high-school sweetheart." In the months before, she'd welcomed a baby boy, survived a life-threatening birth complication, then moved abroad to support her husband (Wicked began filming in England in December 2022). "As a perinatal psychologist," she knew the statistics showing "how vulnerable a marriage is in the postpartum period." But "consumed by the magic and mundanity of new motherhood, I didn't understand the growing distance between us," Jay writes.

It's not clear when she learned her marriage was over (Slater filed for divorce in July 2023, per Today) or of Slater's relationship with Grande, but she talks of coming to terms with "the sudden public downfall of my marriage" while rocking her infant son to sleep. She also describes being in London when her fears of "loss of control and postpartum depression" came to life. "Days when I can't escape the promotion of a movie associated with the saddest days of my life" are dark and she continues to mourn the private life she lost to tabloid fodder. But "I am okay," she writes. "And if I can't be invisible anymore, I may as well introduce myself." In recent interviews, Slater described a "difficult" time with comments on his private life, while Grande defended him, saying "there is no one on this earth with a better heart." (More opinion stories.)