Ethan Slater’s Divorce Finalized Amid Ariana Grande Romance

Ethan Slater and Lilly Jay are officially divorced. The Broadway actor, 31, and his wife of five years finalized their split on Thursday, Sept. 12, TMZ reports. 

Slater, who began dating Wicked co-star Ariana Grande after separating from his high school sweetheart, officially filed for divorce from Jay in New York on July 26, 2023. The terms of his divorce settlement with Jay are sealed. 

Slater and Jay grew up together in Maryland and began dating in 2012. The couple then moved to New York City in 2014, where the performer quickly rose in the theater world, being nominated at the 2018 Tony Awards for his role as SpongeBob SquarePants in the musical adaptation of the Nickelodeon cartoon. 

In November 2018, Slater and Jay tied the knot, and they would go on to welcome a son together in August 2022. “Happy first Mother’s Day to the most loving caring and wonderful mom/person in the world. – from me and this little guy,” Slater wrote on his now-private Instagram in May 2023 ahead of their separation. 

Grande, meanwhile, separated from her ex-husband Dalton Gomez, 28, in July 2023 after nearly two years of marriage. They settled their divorce in October 2023. Despite reports indicating that Grande and Slater’s relationship did not turn romantic until after their mutual separations, Jay told Page Six shortly after Slater’s divorce filing that her family was “just collateral damage” in the situation, blasting the Grammy winner as “not a girl’s girl.” 

Grande addressed the speculation surrounding her relationship with Slater after releasing her album Eternal Sunshine earlier this year. “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. 

She noted that her album also referenced the controversy surrounding her personal life. ‘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.”