One of the biggest celebrity breakups just occurred. Or was it in the making already? Not a lot of people saw this breakup coming, but it’s officially official. Ariana Grande and Ethan Slater are done.
TMZ broke the news to the world on June 8th that the couple had quietly been broken up for several months. No big announcement, no dramatic social media posts or online arguments, just a quiet split that apparently happened a while ago. And somehow, it’s only now making its way to the rest of us. It seems very on-brand for a couple that spent three years being as private as humanly possible.
Sources that are close to the former couple say the split is amicable and that the two still remain friends and are supportive of one another. Reportedly, they gave their relationship careful consideration before calling it quits. So as of now, no bad blood. Or none that is visible to the public. Whether that holds up over time, who knows, but for now, it genuinely sounds like a mutual decision.
How It All Started
The former couple, Ariana Grande, 32, and Ethan Slater, 34, first met while working on Wicked, and their romance soon became one of Hollywood’s most talked-about relationships. And not always for the most flattering reasons.
The couple went public in 2023, drawing a questionable amount of headlines because both were married when they initially crossed paths. Grande later finalized her divorce from Dalton Gomez, while Slater split from Lilly Jay, with whom he shares a son, Ezra. It was messy from the jump, and the internet had a lot of opinions about it, as it usually does. Ariana took a lot of heat from this, and so did Ethan. But they seemed to weather it together and kept things incredibly under wraps for the duration of their relationship.
After keeping things under the radar through the summer of 2023, they started stepping out together that September. Even then, they rarely walked red carpets together and were almost never caught by paparazzi unless they were both promoting Wicked. For a relationship that attracted so much outside noise, they managed to keep most of it private, which is harder than it sounds when you’re Ariana Grande.
The Rumors Had Been Swirling for a While
This breakup didn’t exactly come out of nowhere, which caught a few fans off guard. Reports had been circulating for months that the two had been on and off. Ariana skipped the VMAs solo, Ethan went quiet on social media, and the public appearances dried up entirely. So perhaps some fans had been piecing it together for a while.
They tried to put the rumors to rest late last year when Ariana shared a photo of the two of them together at the European premiere of Wicked: For Good. It seemed to do the trick and sell their relationship to the public.
What’s Next for Ariana
The artist is making headlines with her Eternal Sunshine tour and the release of her new album, Petal, which sources say is reportedly unrelated to her breakup with Slater. So if you were hoping for a heartbreak album chronicling the end of this relationship, you won’t find that in her new album. Sources were very clear that the new music has nothing to do with the split.
Whether fans believe that is another story entirely. Ariana has a long history of processing her personal life through her music, “thank u, next” being the biggest and most obvious example. So the internet is going to read into every single lyric regardless of what her team says. That’s just what happens when you’re one of the biggest pop stars in the world.