Ethan Slater’s ex-wife Lilly Jay today spoke about not being able to ‘escape’ the ‘darkness’ of watching him move on with his Wicked co-star Ariana Grande while she raising their young son, calling it “the saddest days of my life.” to live’.
Slater, 32, and Grande, 31, met on the British set of the film adaptation of the celebrated musical in 2022, when both were married. Ariana plays Glinda – the good witch – alongside Ethan as munchkin Boq.
Lilly, 32, has revealed her sadness at having to witness her ex-husband promoting Wicked around the world with the woman he left her for, calling it a very painful reminder of the ‘public demise of my marriage’ .
She revealed she had moved to Britain with their newborn baby to ‘support’ Ethan while he filmed Wicked. They were high school sweethearts, but he then left her for Ariana.
“I confidently moved to another country with my two-month-old baby and my husband to support his career,” Lilly wrote. ‘Consumed by the magic and mundanity of new motherhood, I didn’t understand the growing distance between us.’
In an essay for The cutpublished last night, the clinical psychologist, who shares a two-year-old son with Slater, reflected on navigating life as a single mother and the end of their six-year marriage.
She admitted that there are “days when I cannot escape the promotion of a film related to the saddest days of my life, which are darker.” Lily also said that while she rocks their son to sleep for “countless hours,” she is also “trying to come to terms with the sudden public demise of my marriage.”
“No one gets married expecting a divorce, just as we don’t board a plane expecting it to crash,” she said.
And again about her ex and his new lover: ‘I really never thought I would get a divorce. Certainly not right after the birth of my first child and certainly not in the shadow of my husband’s new relationship with a celebrity.’
Ethan Slater’s ex-wife Lilly Jay wrote an essay about her painful divorce and how her former high school sweetheart moved on with Ariana Grande; seen in 2018
Slater, 32, started dating Grande, 31, following his split from Jay (pictured together last month to promote the film)
Slater, 32, and Grande, 31, met on the British set of the film adaptation of the celebrated musical in 2022, when both were married. Ariana plays Glinda – the good witch – alongside Ethan as munchkin Boq.
In recent months, Ethan and Ariana made headlines around the world when they hugged on the red carpet to promote Wicked, arguably the biggest movie of 2024.
Meanwhile, Lily, who was married to Ethan between 2018 and 2024, is raising their toddler.
She wrote: ‘The days with my son are sunny.
“I’ve learned that motherhood fills your time, but not your mind. In the countless hours I spend rocking my son to sleep, pushing his stroller, and admiring his sweaty hands clutching a crayon, I work diligently on my private project: coming to terms with the sudden public demise of my marriage .
“This, I tell myself, is nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to hide.”
Ms. Jay also reflected on the fact that no one “gets married thinking they’re going to get divorced, just like we don’t board a plane expecting it to crash.”
‘But I never actually thought I would get a divorce. Especially not right after the birth of my first child and especially not in the shadow of my husband’s new relationship with a celebrity,” Jay noted, referring to his relationship with Grande.
She further wrote: ‘In this period of shock and grief, over a year after the end of my marriage was made public, I deeply miss the life of invisibility that I have created for myself as a psychologist specializing in mental health of women.’
Despite their divorce, she still praised Slater for being a great co-parent, as she stated that while their “partnership has changed,” their “parenting has not.”
“We both love our son deeply 100 percent of the time, regardless of how our parenting time is divided,” she emphasized.
Jay explained that although “people from (her) past have reached out to say they saw my face in a tabloid,” her “patients have kept quiet about it.”
“At Children’s Hospital, my invisibility was a welcome protection from hard conversations for me and my patients,” she said.
“And while I still firmly believe in following my patients’ directions and not assuming I know which parts of my personality resonate with them, the publicity I didn’t consent to increasingly feels like both a challenge and an opportunity.”
‘If I am discovered, what then, be vulnerable? – perhaps it could be a correlation rather than a clinical liability,” she added.
At her lowest, she said she “feared that loss of control and postpartum depression would destroy her for her entire adult life.”
Additionally, Jay noted that her career has seemingly been affected by her and Slater’s public fallout.
Jay and Slater officially finalized their divorce in September after splitting last year; Slater pictured with Lilly
In her essay, Jay noted that she didn’t prepare for divorce right after the birth of her first child, while her husband moved on “with a celebrity” (Slater pictured in November with Grande)
“It’s hard to measure absences, and I can’t say for sure how much my career has been affected by what’s online,” she wrote. “But there have been hints along the way, like the job offer that disappeared without explanation after yet another tabloid news cycle or the patient who was scheduled for an initial appointment but seemingly disappeared.”
This has, admittedly, led her on “darker” days to angrily brood over “the unfairness of a public divorce.”
“Slowly but surely, I have come to believe that in the absence of the life I had planned with my high school sweetheart, there is a life full of love waiting for me and my child,” she told readers.
Jay then explained that when she “can’t be invisible anymore,” she thought it was time to properly “introduce” herself to the world.
‘You know how a sponge absorbs liquid most effectively when it’s already slightly wet? Maybe we can think about my messy, not-so-personal life that way: a dose of my own loss, anger, powerlessness, sadness that helps me hold on to yours,” she concluded.
Earlier in her essay, she noted that during her pregnancy she had “never felt so happy, nor so aware of how precarious happiness could be.”
“I survived preeclampsia, a life-threatening birth complication, and finally our family was complete. Mine is a story about worrying in the wrong direction,” she recalled.
Despite realizing how tough the postpartum period can be on a marriage, Jay said she confidently moved to another country with her then two-month-old baby and husband to ‘support his career.’
Jay and Slater officially finalized their divorce in September after splitting last year.
Slater filed for divorce on July 26, 2023, five years after he tied the knot with Jay, whom he started dating when they were both teenagers.
Grande and Slater met in December 2022 on the British set of the film adaptation of the Broadway musical Wicked
Ariana announced her divorce from Dalton just three days before confirming her new relationship with Ethan, who then filed for divorce from Lilly (seen with Slater in June)
Grande was still married to Dalton Gomez at the time; she filed for divorce in September 2023 and listed the date of separation as February 20, 2023.
Ariana’s divorce was settled in October 2023, with the artist making a single payment of $1,250,000 to Gomez in lieu of spousal support.
She also paid $25,000 in attorney fees for the real estate agent.
Both parties announced within days of each other that they had separated from their spouses.
Ariana announced her divorce from Dalton just three days before confirming her new relationship with Ethan, who then filed for divorce from Lilly.
He cited irreconcilable differences and asked for joint custody of their two-year-old son.
Lilly later cursed Ariana in a series of disparaging interviews, tellingly Page six the music artist is “not a girly girl,” adding that “my family is just collateral damage” for her.
In October, Slater addressed the reactions to his and Grande’s relationship amid rumors of infidelity
In October, Slater addressed the reactions to his and Grande’s relationship amid rumors of infidelity.
“I think it was very difficult to have things in your private life commented on and seen by the public,” he said. GQ.
He continued, “There were a lot of big changes in private lives that were actually happening, so it’s really hard for people who don’t know anything about what’s happening to comment on that.”
Last month, Grande insisted that “there could be no less accurate portrayal of a human being than the one the tabloids spread about him (Slater).”
“No one on this earth goes out of their way or goes out of their way to be there for the people they love and care about,” she told Vanity Fair.