Ariana Grande, Ethan Slater and Lilly Jay Getty Images (2)
Ethan Slater has finalized his divorce from Lilly Jay amid his romance with Ariana Grande.
Us Weekly can confirm that the pair reached a settlement on Thursday, September 12. Details of their docs remain sealed.
Slater filed the divorce paperwork in July 2023. The pair — who were high school sweethearts — tied the knot in 2018 and welcomed their first child in 2022. Around the time that the split went public, Slater made headlines when Us Weekly confirmed he was dating his Wicked costar Grande. (Grande, for her part, called it quits with now ex-husband Dalton Gomez in 2023 too.)
“Ariana and Ethan are dating; however things are fairly new. Ariana and Dalton split in January, and Ethan is separated from his wife,” a source exclusively told Us at the time. “Ariana and Ethan have only recently begun seeing each other but they have a lot of fun together and are enjoying each other’s company.”
Ethan Slater and wife Lilly Jay’s relationship spanned more than a decade before they parted ways — and he began seeing Wicked costar Ariana Grande. The Broadway star — who is best known for playing SpongeBob SquarePants in the musical by the same name — found love with Jay in 2012. The twosome proceeded to […]
Grande spoke out about speculation regarding their relationship after releasing her album Eternal Sunshine earlier this year.
Ethan Slater and Lilly Jay Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images
“I feel like we don’t need to go into any specifics, but, of course, there’s like an insatiable frustration, inexplicable, hellish feeling with watching people, misunderstand the people you love and you and anything,” Grande said on a February episode of “The Zach Sang Show.”
The album also touches on the controversy. “Pieces of it touch on things that are real and then pieces of it are also just like … part of the concept,” she explained. “So what is that separation? And it’s so scary to leave it up to these selective memory people to decipher. It’s scary. But I digress. It’s too late. The vinyls have been printed.”
Grande finalized her own divorce from Gomez in March.
“Ethan and Ariana are living together at her place and are very happy,” a source told Us at the time.
Months later, another insider noted Grande feels like her “authentic self” with Slater. “It’s not superficial, but more intellectual and emotional,” the source said in June.