All About Ethan Slater’s Ex-Wife, Lilly Jay & Her Response to His Relationship With Ariana Grande
Ethan Slater’s ex-wife Lilly Jay opened up about their 2023 divorce for the first time in a revealing essay in The Cut on Dec. 19, offering a rare insight into her life.
In a lengthy essay, Jay reflected on her journey to “accepting the sudden public downfall of my marriage,” her thoughts on her ex-husband’s “relationship with a celebrity,” and her feelings about the Wicked press tour.
Jay was married to Slater for five years before the actor officially filed for divorce on July 26, 2023 after People reported that he “recently” started dating his Wicked co-star Grande. This came a week after sources also began to report that Grande separated from her husband of two years, Dalton Gomez, back in January of that year.
However, speculation soon brew that the timeline being presented was blurrier than what really happened, leading to rumors of an affair between Slater and Grande.
For all the details on Jay, her marriage to Slater, their breakup and what went down after the alleged affair, keep reading.
All About Ethan Slater’s Ex-Wife, Lilly Jay
Jay is a clinical psychologist who was married to Slater from 2018 until their 2023 divorce. Slater and Jay were high school sweethearts who started dating in 2013 after several years of friendship.
The couple share a son who was born in 2022. In an October 2024 interview with GQ, Slater called being a dad the “best thing in the world” but expressed his desire to keep his son, whose name has not been revealed publicly, private.
“It’s been an interesting thing to navigate as a new parent. There’s nothing I want to do more than just show you pictures and talk about him because he’s the best and the light of my life. But I also want to give him the opportunity to meet the world on his own terms,” Slater said.
In her essay in The Cut, Jay spoke about being a single parent after her divorce. “I have come to believe that in the absence of the life I planned with my high-school sweetheart, a lifetime of sweetness is waiting for me and my child,” she wrote.
Jay Is a Clinical Psychologist
Jay is a clinical psychologist specializing in perinatal mental health and child development. According to Daily Mail, she studied at Amherst College.
Jay opened up about her work to The Cut, explaining that, while pregnant with her son, “I worked as a psychologist at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, supporting women pregnant with babies facing severe or fatal diseases.”
Jay has also done advocacy work with the It’s On Us initiative, an organization that provides awareness about sexual assault and encourages bystanders to intervene. In 2014, she even gave a speech at the White House raising awareness for campus sexual assault. Then-President Barack Obama and then-Vice President Joe Biden were both in attendance.
“When nonsurvivors step up and say, ‘I don’t need to be hurt to care about assault,’ they give survivors permission to move our hearts from the edge of our sleeves back to where they belong,” Jay said in her speech, per Bust. “Hearing my friends, family, and professors say, ‘You don’t need to stay hurt to convince us to care’ freed me. That’s when I got back my college experience.”
Jay Is Co-Parenting With Slater After Their Divorce
Jay told The Cut that she and Slater are parenting together after their divorce. “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,” she wrote.
So, Did Slater Really Cheat On Jay With Grande?
Neither Slater, Grande or Jay have explicitly confirmed or denied an affair but reports speculate that infidelity occurred. Fans who do believe Slater cheated on Jay point to the timeline of his divorce and his romance with his co-star.
Grande and Slater met while working on Wicked together, which began filming in December 2022. According to a July 2023, TMZ report, Grande separated from her husband, Gomez, in January 2023. In August of that year, sources told the Daily Mail that Slater and Grande were seen packing on the PDA as early as March. “They were seen making out at a pub in Hampstead, and they were all over each other at Michelle Yeoh’s Oscar party [in March],” the source said.
“They were sloppy on set,” the insider added. “They were seen being all over each other while he was still supposedly happily married to Lilly.”
As eagle-eyed fans noticed, however, Jay and Slater were still gushing about each other on social media around this time. In May 2023, Slater labeled Jay “the most loving caring and wonderful mom/person in the world” in a Mother’s Day Instagram post. On June 1, Jay posted a tribute to Slater for his birthday. “Happy birthday to my incredible husband,” she wrote in a post on Facebook. “Here’s to a lifetime of love and more adventures ahead.”
Though some sources claim Slater and Grande were both separated by the time they started dating, an Us Weekly source said, “Ethan sat Lilly down a few days before the news broke about him and Ariana and said that he wanted a divorce. Lilly never saw it coming!”
So was an affair ever confirmed? Not quite. Is there enough evidence to believe there was one? Absolutely.
Jay Spoke Out About Grande Amid Affair Rumors
Following Slater’s request for a divorce, Jay spoke out for the first time to address the affair rumors.
“[Ariana’s] the story, really. Not a girl’s girl,” Jay told Page Six on July 27, 2023. “My family is just collateral damage.”
“I am focused on rebuilding a life for our son and rebuilding a life for him,” Jay told Daily Mail that same day. “This is what I am trying to do and this is my only focus.”
In her December essay in The Cut, Jay did not address the affair directly but confirmed that she moved to London with Slater “to support his career” and was too preoccupied with motherhood to “understand the growing distance between us.”
Grande appeared to deny the media’s characterization of her and Slater’s romance during a February 2024 appearance on The Zach Sang Show. “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.
She reiterated a similar sentiment in a September interview with Vanity Fair. “There couldn’t be a less accurate depiction of a human being than the one that the tabloids spread about him,” Grande said of Slater but added that she “will never go into certain details.”
Jay Alluded To Struggling With Slater & Grande’s Wicked Press
In her essay for The Cut, Jay alluded to having a hard time watching Slater and Grande promote Wicked.
“As for me, days with my son are sunny. Days when I can’t escape the promotion of a movie associated with the saddest days of my life are darker,” she wrote.
Before you go, click here to see all the celebrity couples who have stayed together after cheating scandals.