Nine months after a huge tea got spilled by TMZ, Ariana Grande finally broke the silence about the rumors that she was supposedly the main reason her co-star Ethan Slater and his high school sweetheart, Lilly Jay, ended their relationship after 10 years as a couple, 5 years of marriage and one recently born baby. However, the pronouncement wasn’t made via Instagram, or Twitter, like celebrities are used to. What she had to say came out as a 3-minute and 34-second song, which she named “yes, and?”.
But, before getting into the details of her most recent single, it’s better to understand all the nuances of this story. Wasn’t she married to the real state agent Dalton Gomez? When (or even) did they break up? Why are people so suspicious she and Slater had an affair while he was still married if sources said he and his wife were separated by July of 2023? And if so, why did Ariana Grande, one of the most powerful women in the music industry, choose to get with someone’s husband? Was it love, or just pleasure? It’s a lot to answer, so let’s get started.
The timeline
If you’re an Ariana stan, it’s extremely unlikely that you don’t know she’s playing Glinda, the good witch, in Wicked’s live-action. Well, that’s where our story begins. In December 2022, Grande moved to London, to start shooting. Also did Ethan Slater, who’s playing Boq, in the same movie. At that time, Ariana and Ethan didn’t know each other, and both parties were still married. Working together, they became good colleagues, but nothing else, at least that the public knew of.
Things started to change when Ariana and Dalton separated in January 2023. No one would find out until months later when TMZ announced the – old – news. Even though Grande split up, Slater was still in a relationship with Lilly, at least until May, as a “Happy Mother’s Day” post on his Instagram confirms – that he now has deleted.
In July, Ariana was seen in a Wimbledon game… without her wedding ring. Shocking. You can imagine how the internet instantly started to chatter and make assumptions. Still, no proof of the separation was shown, and neither did Ariana say anything about what occurred. Until one day later, when TMZ finally announced that the couple had broken up months ago and are now getting a divorce.
In the same month, a few days later, the first rumor that Ethan and Ariana were dating became public, but at that time, Slater and his – now – ex-wife hadn’t announced their separation yet. Remind that two months before that, Ethan had congratulated Lilly for being the “most loving, caring, and wonderful mom/person in the world”. So, it is, in fact, a bit odd that within sixty days, he would’ve split up with his 10-year partner, gotten over the breakup, and started dating a worldwide pop star that he knew for less than six months. Yes, they could’ve broken up and he could still consider her an amazing mom/person, but what Lilly had to say about the whole thing makes people think otherwise.
The same day the relationship was announced, a source told Page Six that Jay was “completely devastated” and that they suddenly broke up, even without anything wrong happening between them (apparently). Days later, a source says to Entertainment Tonight, that Ethan sat Lilly down just a few days before the news became public, and told her about Ariana. He also asked for a divorce. People who worked on Wicked’s cast and crew also said that the two love birds were sloppy about hiding their relationship and that they would even hold hands between takes.
Two days after this information came out, Lilly Jay states on Page Six: “She’s [Ariana Grande] the story really. Not a girl’s girl. My family is just collateral damage”. Jay didn’t say if she was cheated on, but this confirmed the theories that Ethan and Lilly broke up because of Ariana.
Time went by, things settled down, and people forgot a little bit about the story. Grande and Slater keep dating to this day, and family friends say they both are very happy and are great for each other. They also affirm that they didn’t start dating until they were both separated from their exes. However, Ariana and Ethan didn’t say a word about what occurred, until January 12th, 2024, when Ari released “yes, and?”, her main single from her latest album “Eternal Sunshine”.
yes, and?
You probably heard this song more times than you can imagine. Released on the 12th day of the year, “yes, and?”, Ariana’s first solo song after four years of waiting, became a huge success. A lot of people say it’s because of the resemblance with Madonna’s “Vogue”, but even if that’s the inspiration for this single, I would say that the triumph of Ari’s comeback is more about what is contained in the lyrics, she knew how to get a lemon and turn into a lemonade. Ariana said all she had to say and didn’t leave anything out.
“In case you haven’t noticed/ Well, everybody’s tired / And healing from somebody […] I won’t hide / Underneath your own projections / Or change my most authentic life […] Your business is yours and mine is mine / Why do you care so much whose d*** I ride? / Why? / Yes, and?”
After the release, the internet divided into two groups of people: the ones that believed in Ari’s statement and were on her side, because even though Lilly said Ariana was the reason for her family falling apart, Ethan and Ari could’ve started the relationship after the breakup. So those people started to think: “Why is she so wrong and being so criticized?”.
But there was another one: those who got angrier about the fact that she was saying that she didn’t care about the whole situation, or even saying that she was living her “most authentic life” while there was another woman hurt about the fact that she felt betrayed, not only by her ex-husband but also by Ariana. She knew he was married, or at least had just gotten out of a relationship of 10 years. She hung out with them as a friend. She also knew that a kid was involved in all of this, and still chose her way. You can have a lot to say about all of this, I know. It’s a lot of information to process. But one of the most important things to ask ourselves about this is: why?
Yes, but why?
Think about what it is to be a woman to society’s misogynistic standards for a second. A lot would say that being a role model of a woman means being a good stay-at-home mom and wife. And you’re not wrong. Even though, nowadays, things seem to be better and easier for women, deep inside we know that those characteristics are what is expected from us, still. Cheating, or being lovers, could be forms of breaking that expectation. Or could be a desperate way of not being left behind.
Ari is a girl that could get anyone that she wanted, but still chose a guy who was already taken. Let’s remember that she was married and had it all, she got a man and did everything that a good woman would have to do to be respected. But she lost it. She was a divorced woman now, and that’s not a good thing for society. Maybe that was a move to gain all it back, even if it would take getting it from someone else.
And I’m not saying she did it on purpose, but some patriarchal concepts are inevitably intrinsic inside of women, and the consequence is to act without thinking that we are hurting our sisters. That doesn’t mean Ariana is a bad person, but she lacks in a sorority with other girls because she was taught like that by society. That’s probably what Lilly meant when said that Ari isn’t a “girl’s girl”.
On the other side, maybe Grande did it to feel powerful. The fact that a man would leave, or “abandon his family” – like Jay said – for her, meant that she was the most powerful woman in the room, even if the competition was only in her head, and that’s also caused by those sexist concepts that we heard and learned all of our lives.
Also, it is crucial to say that, everyone talks about Ariana but many people leave Ethan outside this conversation. Men are often forgiven for cheating, and abandoning their families, while women get criticized and are, in the majority of the time, the center of the conversation. If all the situation is true, Ari is not innocent, but Ethan was the married one here, that needs to be reminded. Either way, all those explanations turn back to one reason: misogyny.
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The article above was edited by Clarissa Palácio.
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