Ethan Slater’s ex writes about divorce ‘in the shadow’ of his relationship with Ariana Grande

Lilly Jay, the ex of “Wicked” star Ethan Slater, opened up about her headline-making split with the actor in a new essay.

Published in The Cut On December 19, Jay spoke about the impact of her public split on her career as a clinical psychologist.

“I really never thought I’d get divorced,” she said. “Especially not right after giving birth to my first child and especially not in the shadow of my husband’s new relationship with a celebrity.”

In 2023, outlets reported that co-stars Ariana Grande and Slater, who were previously married to other people, had started a relationship while filming “Wicked”. In July 2023, TODAY.com confirmed the co-stars’ relationship three days after confirms that Grande and her husband at the time, Dalton Gomezseparate.

Slater and Jay married in 2018 and welcomed a son in August 2022, per person. Around the time of the reports of Slater and Grande’s relationship, a source also confirmed to TODAY.com that Slater and Jay had broken up.

Jay does not specifically mention Grande, Slater or the project they worked on together in his essay titled “How Does My Divorce Make You Feel?” TODAY.com has reached out to representatives for Grande and Slater for comment.

She described welcoming her son as feeling like her “family was whole” after being diagnosed with preeclampsia, but said in retrospect: “Mine is a story of worrying in the wrong direction.”

“As a perinatal psychologist, I knew all the statistics—how vulnerable a marriage is in the postpartum period, how crucial community connection is to preventing depression and anxiety, how new parenthood affects an entire family,” she said. “But I safely moved to another country with my 2-month-old baby and my husband to support his career.” (“Wicked” was filmed in England and began production in December 2022, Billboard reportedciting Instagram Stories posted by director Jon M. Chu, Cynthia Erivo, and Grande.)

Jay doesn’t directly address when and how her marriage ended, but said, “Consumed by the magic and everydayness of new motherhood, I didn’t understand the growing distance between us.”

“As far as I’m concerned, days with my son are sunny. Days when I can’t escape the promotion of a film associated with the saddest days of my life are darker,” she said.

She referred to her ex as her “high school sweetheart.”

“While our partnership has changed, our parenting has not. We both dearly love our son 100 percent of the time, regardless of how our parenting time is divided,” she said.

In her professional life as a psychologist focused on helping pregnant women with babies facing illnesses, she wrote that she loved “being immersed in the details of other people’s stories rather than documenting my own narrative for public consumption.”

She reflected, “I can’t say for sure how much my career has been affected by what’s out there online.” But now, “the publicity I didn’t accept increasingly feels like both a challenge and an opportunity,” she wrote.

“All my adult life I feared that loss of control and postpartum depression would destroy me. One day in London, I looked up and found that they had both arrived. And I’m okay,” she said.

“If I can’t be invisible anymore, I might as well introduce myself,” she added.

Dubbing the essay a “message in a bottle sent out to sea to perhaps wash up at my patients’ feet one day,” she apologized for no longer being “invisible” to the people she works with before sharing a few takeaways .

“Knowing what you know now, I can say with both personal and professional authority, you are so much stronger than you realize. One of the things you loved most about your partner was actually your own goodness reflected back to you; it’s yours to keep and carry on,” she wrote. “I’ll tell you (and myself) to let go of the worries—our anxious minds are creative but not very good guessers of the future.”

While promoting “Wicked,” which opened in theaters Nov. 22, Slater and Grande briefly discussed their relationship in interviews.

“Obviously it was a really super big year and I think there was something really difficult about things in your private life being commented on and looked at by the public,” Slater told GQ in October.

As for her, It was reported by Vanity Fair that Grande “disputes specific allegations” about her relationship with Slater in an interview.

“The most disappointing part was seeing so many people believe the worst version of it,” Grande said. “There could be no less accurate depiction of a human being than that which the tabloids spread about him…”