Lilly Jay Details Ethan Slater Divorce Amid Ariana Grande Relationship

Lilly Jay, the ex-wife of actor Ethan Slater, bravely shared her thoughts about the former spouses' divorce in a new article for The Cut.

The clinical psychologist, who shares a two-year-old son with Slater, finalized her divorce from the Wicked star in September. The former couple began dating in 2012, six years before their marriage, and welcomed their son in 2022. Slater would file for divorce the following year, also when Grande separated from her ex-husband, Dalton Gomez. That summer, Wicked filming kicked off and it was on set where Grande and Slater reportedly began dating.

In Jay's article, she broke her silence about co-parenting with Slater and how becoming a single mother has been a challenge.

"Motherhood, I have learned, fills your time but not your mind," she wrote. "In the countless hours I spend rocking my son to sleep, pushing his stroller, marveling at his sweaty little hands grasping a crayon, I work diligently on my private project of accepting the sudden public downfall of my marriage. This, I tell myself, is nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to hide."

Jay also proclaimed that Slater was her "high school sweetheart" and didn't anticipate getting divorced. She also shared the difficulties of seeing the Wicked press. "As for me, days with my son are sunny. Days when I can’t escape the promotion of a movie associated with the saddest days of my life are darker." Jay wrote.

"No one gets married thinking they’ll get divorced, in the same way we don’t board a plane expecting to crash," she continued. "But I really never thought I would get divorced. 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."

While Jay admitted that people have contacted her about the rumors they've seen about her marriage, her "patients have remained silent."

"On my darker days, I railed against the unfairness of a public divorce, asking my therapist (we’re all just a Russian nesting doll of therapists supporting therapists), Who would trust a cardiologist who had a heart attack because they never got an EKG?" wrote Jay.

It was previously reported that Jay felt that Slater abandoned their family after his divorce filing, and the actor has since defended Grande from criticism about their relationship.

"There were a lot of big changes in private lives that were really happening," Slater told GQ. "So it’s really hard to see people who don’t know anything about what’s happening commenting on it and speculating, and then getting things wrong about the people you love. So just to address that part of it, that feels really hard."