#lilly jay

November 4, 2021 — Ariana is officially casted in Wicked.

July 2022 — Ariana and Dalton have a second wedding to celebrate 3 years of dating.

September 18, 2022 — According to The Sun, Ariana and Dalton are renting a home in Hampstead Heath to prepare for Wicked filming.

November 2022 — Ariana gets her wedding date tattooed on her finger, matching the one on Dalton’s wrist.

November 11, 2022 — Ethan Slater wishes his wife, Lilly Jay a happy anniversary on Instagram. Ariana later likes all of Ethan’s pictures including this one after she follows him.

December 1, 2022 — Ariana follows Ethan Slater on instagram and posts a throwback of them on the 7th when he is officially announced as Boq.

December 8, 2022 — Wicked officially begins filming and Ethan posts a photo of his and Ariana’s shoes to instagram.

January 2023 — Ethan and Lilly Jay move into a London rental home with their son so they can stay together during Wicked filming.

January 23, 2023 — Ariana and Dalton are spotted holding hands in London. This was said to be a last ditch effort from Dalton to visit her and work things out, but it ended instead as she was falling for someone new. Ariana talks about the whole ordeal in the Eternal Sunshine deluxe track “intro (end of the world) - extended”

February 14, 2023 — Dalton calls Ariana his forever valentine on instagram stories and she reposts it with an “I love you.”

February 20, 2023 — According to the petition for divorce, Ariana’s legal team listed this day as date of separation.

March 4, 2023 — Ariana goes to the Soho House with Ethan and Lilly Jay.

March 5, 2023 — Ethan and Ariana are spotted taking a stroll in London. Allegedly they were alone with Ethan’s son.

March 26, 2023 — Ariana and Ethan are sitting real close at Michelle Yeoh's Oscar party.

Ariana isn’t wearing her ring on this night and stops wearing it on her social media posts.

March 29, 2023 — Frankie visits Ariana in London.

April 2023 — Sometime at the beginning of the month, Ariana and Ethan both unfollowed each other on Instagram, and later fans noticed all of Ariana's likes on his posts were gone, but Ethan's likes remained on her posts. Meaning Ethan blocked her. And it seemed Frankie had been blocked as well.

April 7, 2023 — Ariana briefly wears her wedding ring while out in London.

April/May 2023 — Dalton supposedly gets Ariana’s name tattooed on his chest around this time.

May 14, 2023 — Ethan wishes Lilly Jay a happy mother’s day on instagram. Ariana likes it.

May 15, 2023 — Ariana posts an instagram story for her and Dalton’s 2 year wedding anniversary.

Call me crazy but I now believe this post was the bat signal. If they started dating in July 2019, that would make 3 years, 10 months together. Two months shy of 4 years so why is she specifically emphasizing (3.5 together!!!)? Well, if they broke up in January that would make exactly three and a half years together. So while they were legally married for 2 years now, they weren’t officially together anymore.

May 28, 2023 — Ariana deletes all her instagram posts prior to June 2021 and liked a photo that highlighted the relationship problems she was having.

Also during this time, Ariana was pictured wearing Ethan’s Shiz sweater (or a matching one) on the Wicked set.

June 1, 2023 — Lilly Jay wishes Ethan a happy birthday on Facebook.

June 27, 2023 — Ariana is pictured celebrating her birthday with arms around Ethan and Jonathan Bailey. Dalton’s sister posts about this on Facebook when everything comes out in July. It’s becoming more clear that even though they officially separated in February, they were not broken up for good. Ariana describes it as a ‘situationship’ in the Eternal Sunshine track, “don’t wanna break up again” and adds “..you didn’t even try. When you finally did, it was at the wrong time.” Judging from the song and her liked Instagram post the previous month, there were attempts from Dalton to change that felt inauthentic. I now think she stayed a little longer for his sake but her mind had been made up for a while.

July 16, 2023 — Ariana is pictured without her wedding ring at Wimbledon 2023 and it makes headlines. I think this was staged because she hasn’t worn it in months.

July 17, 2023 — TMZ reports that Ariana and Dalton have been separated since January after he flew out to see her.

July 20, 2023 — TMZ also breaks the news that Ariana is now dating Wicked costar, Ethan Slater although he is supposedly still married. In the midst of the drama, Ariana likes some concerning instagram posts.

July 21, 2023 — Sources tell Page Six that Ethan told his wife Lilly Jay that he wanted a divorce just a few days before the news of him and Ariana breaks and she was "completely blinded sided"

July 26, 2023 — Ethan officially files for divorce from Lilly Jay.

July 27, 2023 — Lilly Jay breaks her silence and tells Page Six "Ariana's the story, really. Not a girl's girl. My family is just collateral damage." She says she is now focused on raising their 11 month old son who Ariana had previously met and held.

August 3, 2023 — Page Six reports that Grande and Slater were seen kissing before Ethan had broken things off with his wife, Lilly Jay. "They were sloppy on set," a source says, claiming they were together long before the world found out. "They were seen being all over each other while he was still supposedly happily married to Lilly." The source continues, "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 also claims Grande and Gomez went on "multiple" double dates with Slater and Jay.

This pub rumor is later confirmed nearly two years later by Ariana herself in the Eternal Sunshine deluxe track, “Hampstead”.

September 18, 2023 — Ariana officially files for divorce from Dalton.

September-December 2023 — Ariana and Ethan are staying quiet but not a secret. They are spotted having dinners and going to Disneyworld. Ariana attends several of Ethan’s broadway shows for Spamalot.

January 7, 2024 — Ariana releases new single “Yes, and?” from her upcoming album and features the lyric “Why do you care so much whose dick I ride?”

February 2024 — Ariana lightly addresses the media circus in a Zach Sang interview: “We know this about the tabloids and about the media. We selectively remember that this is what the tabloids do to people, especially women, based on whether or not we like the person. We selectively remember that. We selectively leave space for humanness, for nuance.. We don’t need to go into any specifics, but of course there’s, like, an insatiable frustration..with watching people misunderstand the people you love and you.”

March 8, 2024 — Eternal Sunshine album is released. She begins the album with doubts about her marriage and admits that her eyes are wandering. She covers the toxicity of her and Dalton’s relationship over several tracks. “The Boy is Mine” officially addresses the scandal. Most of the last section of the album is about falling in love with Ethan and how this time it’s forever because she’s never felt this way before.

March 19, 2024 — Daltiana divorce finalized.

March 28, 2025 — Eternal Sunshine deluxe drops with a little more information about both Dalton and Ethan. There’s a song called “Dandelion” that some people felt was a diss to Lilly with the flower reference. The closing track “Hampstead” addresses the last two years of her life, and claims the general public doesn’t know the full story. And you know what, she’s right. I’m well aware that we don’t have all the answers or full context to anything I’ve covered here so don’t take it too seriously. I obviously have my own opinion, but I can say I give her grace in certain circumstances or the benefit of the doubt when I feel it it’s due.

April 28, 2026 — Ariana announces her 8th studio album Petal, dropping July 31st. She describes it as such: “It’s a little feral. It’s definitely from a place I’ve been maybe too shy or polite to tap into before. This kind of just feels like, ‘Fuck it.’”

June 6, 2026 — Ariana kicks off the Eternal Sunshine tour and Ethan is notably absent.

June 8, 2026 — Ahead of her album release, it is reported that Ariana and Ethan amicably split “several months ago” after nearly three years of dating.