Lilly Jay and Ethan Slater are making waves following a divorce filing on July 26, 2023. The pair had been married since 2018 and even welcomed a son named Ezra Slater. Despite this, Ethan is walking away from their union to start an alleged love affair on a clean slate. Jay is a trained psychologist who was in a long time relationship with Ethan. In fact, she was beside him while he built a career as a successful actor renowned for his roles as Spongebob SquarePants in a musical of the same name and Boq in Wicked.
While short-lived marriages are not uncommon, Slater is said to have since moved on with a new love interest in the person of Ariana Grande, the Grammy-winning singer.
On her part, Lilly Jay is left to also pick up the pieces of her life and also move on. Let’s take a close look at their marriage and what led to their divorce.
How Lilly Jay and Her Husband Met and Got Married
Lilly Jay and the Wicked actor are high school sweethearts who met years ago while they were attending Georgetown Day School in Washington D.C. Based on the timeline, they became a couple in 2012 when they started dating and remained together for the next couple of years. Notably, she supported him while he got roles in Spongebob Squarepants’ Broadway musical which he played the lead role.
Subsequently, Slater translated roles in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Murphy Brown, and Instinct among many others.
After dating for 6 years, Lilly and Ethan decided to take their relationship to the next level. The pair got married in 2018, at a time when Ethan had caught the attention of many as the lead character in a musical of the cartoon he had loved as a child.
With this in mind, their marriage was almost another fairy tale story except this was not on stage or screen. As the woman in his life, their romance saw them attend public events like the 2018 Tony Awards where he was nominated for Best Actor in a Musical. In 2020, he celebrated Lilly’s graduation from college with a degree in psychology.
They Became Parents for the First Time in 2022
After ten years of knowing each other and four years of marriage, Lilly and Ethan became parents to an adorable son, Ezra in August 2022. Since his arrival, Lilly and Ethan’s son has made it to the actor’s social media pages as he celebrates different milestones. One such is a May 2023 Instagram update, Ethan celebrated Lilly’s first Mother’s Day in a sweet captioned message.
Happy first Mother’s Day to the most loving caring and wonderful mom/person in the world, from me and this little guy.
While this heartfelt message seems to make their union sweet, things soon fell apart over the next couple of months. In fact, he has made his social media page private following the issues surrounding his marriage.
See Also: Lis Vega: Who Is She? Failed Marriage To Federico Diaz, Other Facts To Know
Ethan Allegedly Abandoned his Family to Be with Ariana Grande
According to TMZ, Ethan filed for divorce from Lilly on July 26, 2023, but no reason was given. Considering their publicized marriage of 5 years, this is quite shocking to many of their admirers. Like in most celebrity marriages, many speculations have been going around regarding the matter.
As it is, one points to the fact that Ethan is together with Ariana Grande as indicated by a previous report by TMZ on July 20, 2023. The pair who have shared the screen in Wicked are said to have been dating for months before the news broke out. This follows Grande’s split from Dalton Gomez whom she had been married to since 2021. Howbeit, Gomez allegedly cheated on Grande and this strained their relationship, Slater’s divorce petition has not stated his reasons.
Moreso, Ethan is said to have revealed the details of his new romance with Grande days before the news broke out. Understandably, Lilly is not taking the news well as she feels blindsided that her husband would abandon his family for another woman.
Despite claims about an alleged love affair between Grande and Slater, neither of the parties involved has indicated whether they are together or not.
