Ariana Grande soft launches boyfriend Ethan Slater on Instagram

Ariana Grande posted a photo of her boyfriend on her Instagram for the first time.

On 11 April, the “yes, and?” singer shared a carousel of photos on Instagram showing off moments from CinemaCon on Wednesday, in which she joined her co-stars - including Slater - to promote her new movie Wicked. She uploaded selfies with her other costars Cynthia Erivo and Michelle Yeoh, as well as snaps of a pink floral dress.

This marks the first time Grande has posted Slater on her feed, effectively soft-launching her Tony-nominated boyfriend to her feed. Since news of their relationship first surfaced in July of last year, the pair has been fielding intense public scrutiny amid rumours that they began seeing each other while they were both still with other people, which representatives have repeatedly denied.

The pop star previously sat down in a video interview for The Zach Sang Show on Twitch’s Amazon Music channel on 26 February to discuss not only her seventh studio album but also the gossip revolving around it as well. As they spoke about her recently released seventh studio album, Eternal Sunshine, host Zach Sang noted that “people have crafted their own narratives” about Grande’s love life - including the so-called timeline following her divorce from ex-husband Dalton Gomez in September 2023 and her subsequently dating her co-star, Slater.

“The thing is that like, we know this about the tabloids and the media,” Grande said. “Like, am I crazy? Don’t we know this?”

“We selectively remember that this is what the tabloids do to people, especially women, based on whether or not we like the person,” she continued. “We selectively leave space for humanness, for nuance. They don’t leave space for that - well, they do for their friends and their family, it’s selective. They turn it off when that aligns with the version of a person they have in their head that they want to believe is true.”

Only days after it was announced that she and Gomez were separating after two years of marriage in July 2023, People reported that the “Positions” singer was dating Slater. However, it was also reported at the time that Slater had recently separated from his wife, Lilly Jay, his former high school sweetheart.

The pair were reportedly married in 2018 and welcomed a baby boy in 2022. At the time, sources claimed that Jay was upset and felt “blindsided” by the news that her ex was dating his very famous co-star. “It’s horrible. They were high school sweethearts,” a source told Page Six. “They have a baby! She’s a wreck.”

Within the same month as Grande’s divorce was announced, TMZ reported that Slater filed for divorce from Jay. The court documents were filed in New York City on 26 July, however, the reasons for the split were not publicly addressed.