Ariana Grande, one of pop’s most beloved voices and a longtime staple of the music industry, has spent the better part of a year caught in a storm of speculation, shade, and straight-up misogyny.
Since news broke that she was dating her Wicked co-star Ethan Slater in mid-2023, the internet has had no chill.
Rumors immediately spiraled, branding Ariana a homewrecker, accusing her of stealing Ethan from his wife Lilly Jay, and even implying she cheated on her then-husband Dalton Gomez.
But here’s the real question: Did Ariana Grande actually cheat on Dalton Gomez with Ethan Slater?
To answer that, we need to go back to the beginning—before the viral headlines, before the angry Instagram comments, before Lilly Jay’s now-infamous essay in The Cut. The reality, as always, is far more nuanced than social media would have you believe.
May 2023: Ariana’s Last Public Tribute to Dalton
On May 15, 2023, Ariana Grande posted a simple but heartfelt tribute on Instagram celebrating her second wedding anniversary with Dalton Gomez.
A black-and-white wedding photo and the caption “2. I love him so” gave fans hope that things were still solid between the two. But in hindsight, that post may have been more about nostalgia or a hopeful reconciliation than a celebration of ongoing love.
Because, as TMZ later reported, Ariana and Dalton had actually separated months before—in January 2023.
June 2023: Ethan’s Ex Still Thinks They’re Together
Just weeks after Ariana’s anniversary post, Ethan Slater’s then-wife Lilly Jay posted her own tribute to her husband on Facebook for his 31st birthday.
“Happy birthday to my incredible husband, the man who helped create our perfect bundle of joy,” she wrote. “Here’s to a lifetime of love and more adventures ahead. Missing you loads! Love you, Short.”
Clearly, Lilly still saw Ethan as her life partner at this point. And that complicates the narrative when just a month later, Ethan and Ariana’s rumored relationship exploded into the public eye.
July 17, 2023: Ariana and Dalton’s Split Is Made Public
TMZ reported on July 17 that Ariana and Dalton had separated in January and had tried to reconcile sometime in the spring. That may explain Ariana’s May anniversary post.
But the reconciliation reportedly didn’t work, and the pair quietly went their separate ways.
Crucially, this information came out before any mention of Ethan Slater being in the picture.
July 20, 2023: Ariana and Ethan’s Relationship Goes Public
Just three days later, TMZ dropped the bombshell: Ariana Grande and Ethan Slater were dating. The report noted that the two grew close while filming Wicked and had “started dating several months ago.”
Though Ethan was technically still married to Lilly Jay at the time, the report emphasized that the relationship didn’t begin until after both Ariana and Ethan were separated from their spouses.
Was that the full truth? That’s where things get murky. The timeline suggests emotional overlap—feelings possibly started before either couple had officially ended their marriages. But there’s no solid proof of physical cheating.
December 2024: Lilly Jay Speaks Out
Fast forward to December 19, 2024, when Lilly Jay wrote a personal essay for The Cut titled “How Does My Divorce Make You Feel?”
In the piece, she reflected on her heartbreak and the shock of experiencing a divorce just after giving birth. “I really never thought I would get divorced,” she 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.”
The piece doesn’t accuse Ariana or Ethan of cheating. But it paints a clear picture of devastation.
The public latched onto the essay as validation that Ariana must have done something wrong, even though Lilly never directly made that claim.
March 2024: Ariana Sings Her Side of the Story
Ariana finally addressed the chaos in the way she knows best—through music. On March 8, 2024, she dropped her album Eternal Sunshine, and the opening track, “intro (end of the world),” gave fans a raw glimpse into her emotional state.
“How can I tell if I’m in the right relationship / Aren’t you really supposed to know that shit?” she sings.
Later, she alludes to a life-changing encounter: “Wonder if he’s thinking ’bout it too and smiling / Wonder if he knows that that’s been what’s inspiring me.”
She doesn’t name names, but the subtext is powerful: she was deeply conflicted about her marriage, and someone else (presumably Ethan) sparked emotions she couldn’t ignore.
March 15, 2024: Bowen Yang Defends Ariana
Comedian and Wicked co-star Bowen Yang publicly came to Ariana’s defense during an episode of his Las Culturistas podcast.
He blasted the media’s portrayal of Ariana as a “homewrecker” and called the discourse around her relationships “puritanical.”
“The narrative is wrong,” he said firmly. “She’s not even outwardly saying that, but the narrative has been incorrect… People have even retracted things in these stories with no fucking apology to the people who are involved.”
Bowen’s point is one that many Ariana fans have echoed: The public has been more than willing to vilify her based on incomplete or inaccurate information.
And it all reeks of the same old misogyny we’ve seen before—where women are held to impossible standards and demonized for complex, private situations.
So, Did Ariana Cheat?
Let’s lay it all out. Ariana and Dalton were separated in January 2023. Ethan and Lilly were still publicly together in June 2023, but insiders insist he and Ariana didn’t start dating until after his marriage ended.
There’s a possibility that emotional bonds were forming between Ariana and Ethan while they were still legally married to other people. But physical cheating? There’s no definitive evidence of that.
The anger at Ariana seems to come more from optics than facts. People don’t like seeing a celebrity thrive in love while another woman—Lilly—suffers publicly.
And yes, Lilly deserves compassion. What happened to her was painful and unfair. But Ariana doesn’t deserve to be the scapegoat for an already crumbling marriage.
The Verdict
Did Ariana Grande cheat on Dalton Gomez with Ethan Slater? According to every timeline available, no—at least not in the traditional sense.
If anything, she fell in love at an inconvenient time, during a period when her marriage was already falling apart. Her relationship with Ethan may have hurt people, but it doesn’t make her a villain.
In the end, love isn’t always neat, and divorce never is. But Ariana isn’t the first person to fall for someone new before the ink dried on the divorce papers—and she won’t be the last.
