Ethan Slater’s ex-wife breaks silence on ‘public demise’ of marriage

Lilly Jay reflects on the fallout after her marriage to Ethan Slater ended.

In an essay for The cut published Thursday, Dec. 18, Jay, a clinical psychologist specializing in perinatal mental health and child development, wrote about Slater’s relationship with his Evil costar Ariana Grande (though she doesn’t mention the pop star by name) following their split and the difficulties she faced as a result.

Many of Jay’s words also address her life as a mother to her and Slater’s 2-year-old son in the context of their divorce. As she explained, “Motherhood, I’ve learned, takes up your time, but not your mind.”

“In the countless hours I spend rocking my son to sleep, pushing his stroller, marveling at his sweaty little hands gripping a crayon, I am busily working on my private project of accepting the sudden public demise of my marriage,” Jay continued. “This, I say to myself, is nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to hide.”

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She added, “Slowly but surely, I’ve come to believe that in the absence of the life I planned with my high-school sweetheart, a life of sweetness awaits me and my child.”

Slater, 32, and Grande, 31, began dating after his split from Jay earlier this year and after her split from ex-husband Dalton Gomez.

The Broadway actor’s divorce from Jay was finalized in September, 12 years after they started dating and nearly six years after their wedding in November 2018. (Their son was born in August 2022.

Earlier in his essay, Jay admitted, “Nobody gets married thinking they’re going to get divorced, any more than we get on a plane expecting to crash. But I really never thought I’d get divorced. 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 this season of shock and grief, over a year after the end of my marriage was made public, I deeply miss the life of invisibility I created for myself as a psychologist specializing in women’s mental health,” she continued.

Jay wrote that “people from (her) past have reached out to say they saw my face in a tabloid,” in regards to the controversy. But on the flip side, her “patients have remained silent.”

“At the children’s hospital, my invisibility was welcome protection from tough conversations for me and my patients,” she also said. “And while I still firmly believe in following my patients’ lead and not presuming to know what parts of my personality resonate with them, the publicity I didn’t accept increasingly feels like both a challenge and an opportunity.”

“If I’m detected — like what, being vulnerable? — maybe that could be a point of connection rather than a clinical liability,” she continued.

Jay admitted that she “feared that loss of control and postpartum depression would destroy me” for “her whole adult life” – something that ended up happening. But she insisted she is “okay”.

“If I can no longer be invisible, I might as well introduce myself,” she added. “You know how a sponge is most effective at absorbing liquid when it’s already slightly wet? Maybe we can think of my messy not-so-personal life that way: a dose of my own loss, rage, powerlessness, sadness that helps I hold yours.”

She also wrote about co-parenting: “While our partnership has changed, our parenting has not. We both fiercely love our son 100 percent of the time, no matter how our parenting time is divided.”