Because we’re all so swept up by the green and pink fog of Wicked, it seems like we’ve forgotten about all of the scandal that surrounded the premiere of the movie when its press tour first started — especially about a certain high-ponytailed pop star and her alleged affair with SpongeBob. Oh come on, you know I’m talking about Ariana Grande and Ethan Slater.
For a lot of us, after we saw Ariana and Ethan cozy up together and mutually gush over how drastically their lives changed for the good after shooting Wicked, we totally forgot about just how messy their getting-together was. When rumors about the two being romantically linked started, Ariana was still with ex-husband Dalton Gomez and Ethan was still with his ex-wife Lilly Jay… oh and did you forget that they had just had a baby?
Well, if that little detail did seem to slip your mind, Lilly is back to remind you. After over a year and a half, she finally broke her silence about what her divorce from Ethan did to her life in the best way anyone knows how to talk about truly insane things: she wrote an essay for The Cut. And spoiler alert: you’re about to start hating Ethan all over again.
did not know lily jay was a therapist..her article is so well written and ethan slater is trash and i hope ariana wakes up and realizes that a man who leaves his post partum wife is not a forever kinda person lol
— ana 🌸🪐 (@arinialls) December 19, 2024
Ethan Divorced Her Right After She Gave Birth… And While His Relationship With Ariana Was Going Public
“… I really never thought I would get divorced,” Lilly wrote. “Especially not just after giving birth to my first child and especially not in the shadow of my husband’s new relationship with a celebrity.” Yikes. It’s giving, they definitely cheated. (Allegedly!!!)
Lilly Wanted To Live A Private Life But Ethan’s Career Demanded Publicity
Lilly basically says that she had to give up the privacy she always wanted in life, simply because Ethan’s career required him to be in public eye. “My partner was on a different path, in which social media and exposure were not impediments but rather necessities,” she wrote. And imagine how much more intense that became after the cheating rumors. This was especially hard considering Lilly was a therapist.
“My profession, which requires privacy, and his, which is measured in applause,” she wrote.
Um, She Had Preeclampsia
“I survived preeclampsia, a life-threatening birth complication, and finally, our family was whole,” Lilly said. And yet, Ethan slowly filed for divorce right after and… you guessed it: stepped out with his new pop-star beau.
Oh And Post-Partum Depression
“My entire adult life, I feared that loss of control and postpartum depression would destroy me,” she said. “One day in London, I looked up and found that they had both arrived.” So while Ethan was having the time of his life reprising a dream role and getting cozy with Glinda, Lilly was at home dealing with her world crashing all around her.
Lilly Even Moved To Another Country To Support Ethan’s Career
“As a perinatal psychologist, I knew all the statistics — how vulnerable a marriage is in the postpartum period, how vital community connection is in preventing depression and anxiety, how new parenthood impacts a whole family — but I confidently moved to another country with my 2-month-old baby and my husband to support his career,” Lilly said. Yup, in case everyone forgot: giving birth is really fucking hard and also the time after giving birth is really fucking hard. And you know what’s also hard? Doing all that while following your scumbag husband to a new country.
The Public Drama Is Still Affecting Her Private Practice
“I work diligently on my private project of accepting the sudden public downfall of my marriage,” Lilly first explained. But then, she said that it’s not only the public scrutiny she had to face — it ended up affecting her livelihood.
“I can’t say for sure how much my career has been impacted by what’s out there online,” she penned. “But there have been hints along the way, like the job offer that dissolved without explanation after yet another tabloid news cycle or the patient who’s scheduled for a first appointment but seemingly vanishes.”
Betrayed By Her High School Sweetheart
When talking about dealing with the reality of her life in the present, Lilly wrote that she had to pull herself together “in the absence of the life I planned with my high-school sweetheart, a lifetime of sweetness is waiting for me and my child.” Everything she had hoped for herself, Ethan, and their baby went to shit. And how was she supposed to know that the man she had been with for 10 years would end up abandoning her in the wake of the birth of their first child?
Read Lilly’s full essay here.
