Ariana Grande's Love Life Is Messy

It’s been a big week for people interested in Ariana Grande’s personal life. Last weekend, 30-year-old Grande was spotted enjoying a game at Wimbledon (she’s been shooting the Wicked movies in London). The twist? She wasn’t wearing her engagement ring and wedding band. The next day, TMZ broke the news that Grande and her pandemic husband of 2 years, 27-year-old luxury real estate agent Dalton Gomez, had split. According to sources, the couple were heading towards divorce after separating in January. Hey, every great pop star needs a starter marriage!

But then, on Wednesday, this relatively standard celebrity split got a little more complicated. TMZ reported that Grande had begun dating Ethan Slater. Slater, 31, is Grande’s co-star in the Wicked movies (he’s playing Boq, the Munchkin doomed to become the Tin Woodman). Before last week, the actor was best known for his Tony-nominated performance as SpongeBob SquarePants in SpongeBob SquarePants: The Broadway Musical. A photo from March shows Slater and Grande sitting closely beside one another at a restaurant with some other Wicked cast members.

Now, this is where things get messy. Turns out, Slater is also married. He and his high school sweetheart, singer Lilly Jay, welcomed a baby boy last year. While Slater was singing his wife’s praises as recently as May, in a (now-deleted) Mother’s Day Instagram post, sources told TMZ that he and Jay had separated before he got together with Grande. But, like John Mulaney and Olivia Munn before them, some were suspicious of this timeline. As gossips on social media speculated that Grande was the “other woman,” Slater made the very wise decision to switch his Instagram profile to private

On Friday, a source told Page Six that Jay was “completely blindsided” by Slater and Grande’s relationship. The insider said, “It’s horrible. They were high school sweethearts. They have a baby! She’s a wreck.” The source also alleged that Slater ended things with Jay “when nothing appeared wrong between them.” Translation: Grande and Slater had already connected before he dumped his wife. While Page Six’s insiders alleged the pair had actually been together for “several months,” Entertainment Tonight’s sources claimed they’d only “recently” begun dating. HMMMM.

This isn’t the first time Grande’s been involved in a cheating scandal. In her 2016 book Sorry Not Sorry, the late, great Naya Rivera insinuated that her ex-boyfriend, Big Sean, had cheated on her with Grande in 2014. Rivera said that, after she and Big Sean had been fighting for days, he refused to see her. So, she popped into his house in L.A.: “I walk in, go downstairs, and guess what little girl is sitting cross-legged on the couch listening to music? … It rhymes with ‘Smariana Schmande’.” Whoopsies! River and Big Sean split, and, soon, the rapper was officially involved with Grande. They split in April 2015.

In a much lighter development, some people are a little confused about which SpongeBob Grande is dating. It’s the red-haired theater kid, not Tom Kenny, the 61-year-old voice actor who’s played SpongeBob for nearly 25 years. Kenny’s wife and fellow voice actor, Jill Tally, helped clear up the confusion in an Instagram comment. On a post from The Cut that featured the headline: “Is Ariana Grande Dating Spongebob Now?”, Tally wrote:

“Hi everyone, I’m married to Tom Kenny (who voices SpongeBob on the TV show). He is not dating Ariana Grande. I don’t know if Ethan Slater (who played SpongeBob in the musical) is or isn’t dating Ariana Grande. However, they’re both adorable and I totally ship it. Just wanted to set the record straight. P.S. as for me and Tom Kenny — we are celebrating our 27th wedding anniversary today.”

PHEW. That was a close one!