Lilly Jay, Wicked star Ethan Slater’s ex, opened up about her headline-making split from the actor in a new essay.

Published in The Cut on December 19, Jay addressed the impact of her public split on her career as a clinical psychologist.

“I Really I never thought I would get a divorce,” she said. “Especially not right after the birth of my first child and certainly not in the shadow of my husband’s new relationship with a celebrity.”

In 2023, media outlets reported that co-stars Ariana Grande and Slater, who were previously married to other people, had begun a relationship while filming “Wicked.” In July 2023, TODAY.com confirmed the co-stars’ relationship, three days after it was confirmed that Grande and her then-husband Dalton Gomez had split.

Slater and Jay married in 2018 and welcomed a son in August 2022, according to People. Around the time of reports about Slater and Grande’s relationship, a source also confirmed to TODAY.com that Slater and Jay had broken up.

Jay doesn’t specifically name Grande, Slater or the project they worked on together in her essay titled “How Do You Feel After My Divorce?” TODAY.com has reached out to representatives for Grande and Slater for comment.

She described welcoming her son with a feeling that her “family was whole” after she was diagnosed with preeclampsia, but said in retrospect, “My story is a story of worry in the wrong direction.”

“As a perinatal psychologist, I knew all the statistics — how vulnerable a marriage is in the postpartum period, how important community connection is in preventing depression and anxiety, how new parenthood affects the entire family,” she said. “But I confidently moved to another country with my two-month-old baby and my husband to support his career.” “Wicked” was filmed in England and began production in December 2022, Billboard reported, citing Instagram -Stories by director Jon M. Chu, Cynthia Erivo and Grande.)

Jay doesn’t directly address when and how their marriage ended, but said, “Consumed by the magic and mundanity of new motherhood, I didn’t understand the growing distance between us.”

“As for me, the days with my son are sunny. “The days when I can’t escape the publicity of a film associated with the saddest days of my life are darker,” she said.

She referred to her ex as her “high school sweetheart.”

“While our relationship has changed, our parenting has not. We both love our son 100 percent, regardless of how our parenting time is divided,” she said.

In her professional life as a psychologist with a focus on helping pregnant women with babies suffering from illnesses, she wrote that she loved “diving into the details of other people’s stories rather than documenting my own narrative for the public.”

She said: “I can’t say for sure how much my career has been influenced by the online content.” But now “the advertising that I didn’t consent to feels more and more like a challenge.” And a chance,” she wrote.

“Throughout my adult life, I feared that loss of control and postpartum depression would destroy me. One day I checked in London and found that they had both arrived. And I’m fine,” she said.

“When I can no longer be invisible, I can also introduce myself,” she added.

She called the essay a “message in a bottle sent out to sea, perhaps one day to reach the feet of my patients,” and apologized for no longer being “invisible” to the people she works with. before sharing some insights.

“Knowing what you know now, I can say with personal and professional authority that you are so much stronger than you realize. What you loved most about your partner was actually your own goodness reflected in you; It’s up to you to keep it and keep it going,” she wrote. “I would advise you (and me) to let go of worry – our anxious minds, while creative, are not very good at predicting the future.”

While promoting Wicked, which premiered in theaters on November 22, Slater and Grande spoke briefly about their relationship in interviews.

“Obviously it’s been a really super big year and I think it’s been really difficult to comment on things in your personal life and be looked at by the public,” Slater told GQ in October.

For her part, Vanity Fair reported that Grande denied “specific allegations” about her relationship with Slater in an interview.

“What was most disappointing was seeing so many people believe the worst version of this,” Grande said. “There could be no less apt image of a person than the one that the tabloids spread about him…”