‘Can’t be invisible anymore’: Ethan Slater’s ex-wife breaks silence on losing her husband to Ariana Grande after giving birth to their child

Before his relationship with Wicked star Ariana Grande, Tony nominee Ethan Slater was married to Lilly Jay. The collapse of their relationship soon became tabloid fodder, with rumors circulating that Slater left his wife to be with Grande.

Jay and Slater attended the same high school and graduated in 2010, but their romantic relationship didn’t start until 2012. Slater pursued an acting career, while Jay works as a clinical psychologist specializing in perinatal mental health. The couple married in 2018 and welcomed their first child, a son, in 2022. In July 2023, TMZ reported that Grande was dating Slater after being separated from now ex-husband Dalton Gomez since Feb. 2023. Slater, meanwhile, announced his separation from Jay in July 2023.

That same month, Jay spoke to Page Six, saying, “[Ariana’s] the story, really. Not a girl’s girl. My family is just collateral damage.” Throughout all the speculations surrounding their new relationship, Slater and Grande say that they were separated from their respective partners when they began dating. Slater and Jay’s divorce was finalized in Sept. 2024. Now, Jay is speaking out about the demise of her relationship in an essay for The Cut titled “How Does My Divorce May You Feel?”

The downfall of Ethan James and Lilly Jay’s marriage in her own words

Jay started her essay by writing, “No one gets married thinking they’ll get divorced, in the same way we don’t board a plane expecting to crash.” She continued to write that she especially didn’t expect to go through her divorce just after giving birth and amid the publicity surrounding Slater’s new relationship with Grande, though she didn’t mention their names.

According to Jay, she felt her family was finally complete after they welcomed their son in 2022. As a psychologist, she knew how fragile marriage can become after welcoming a baby, but was “consumed by the magic and mundanity of new motherhood” that she wasn’t able to see the widening divide between her and her husband. Grande and Slater met on the set of Wicked in 2022, with Slater taking on the role of munchkin Boq. The movie was filmed in the U.K. and Jay said she “confidently moved to another country with my 2-month-old baby and my husband to support his career.”

Sometime during filming, Slater and Grande started a romantic relationship, but reports say that the former was already separated from his wife then. In an interview with GQ in Oct., Slater addressed his new relationship, saying that being under public scrutiny was difficult. The actor said it was a “big year” for him and there were “big changes” happening in his life, which remained out of the public eye but stirred widespread speculation. “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,” he told the magazine.

In her essay, Jay wrote, “If I can’t be invisible anymore, I may as well introduce myself,” referring to how one of the most difficult times of her life was publicly dissected. Despite the difficult breakup, Slater and Jay remain united by their shared devotion to the most important person in their lives. “While our partnership has changed, our parenthood has not. Both of us fiercely love our son 100 percent of the time, regardless of how our parenting time is divided,” Jay wrote.

Grande has also spoken out, telling Vanity Fair that the rumors about Slater leaving his wife for her are baseless. The singer said her new beau has been inaccurately depicted, adding, “There is no one on this earth with a better heart, and that is something that no bulls**t tabloid can write in real life.”