Ethan Slater’s ex-wife Lilly Jay is opening up about her life after the Wicked star dumped her and suddenly started a new relationship with co-star Ariana Grande.

Jay, a licensed clinical psychologist, finalized her divorce from the Tony-nominated actor in September last year when he went public with his co-star. The former couple, who married in 2018 after dating in high school, have a two-year-old son together.

Jay broke her silence in a personal essay published by The Cut on Thursday.

“Slowly but surely I have come to believe that without the life I had planned with my high school sweetheart, there is a life full of sweetness waiting for me and my child,” Jay wrote. “While our relationship has changed, our parenting has not. We both love our son 100% deeply, regardless of how our parenting time is divided.”

Jay added that the days with her son are “sunny” even though she “can’t escape the promotion of a film that is associated with the saddest days of my life.”

But the Columbia and Long Island University graduate revealed the highly publicized split has taken a toll on her professionally.

“I cannot say with certainty how much my career has been influenced by the online content,” she wrote. “But there were clues along the way, like the job offer that was canceled without explanation after another tabloid news story, or the patient who was scheduled for an initial appointment but seemingly disappears.”

According to her LinkedIn profile, Jay recently started a position at Prospect Psychology in New York. She previously worked in perinatal care at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

“I loved working in a helping profession and diving into the details of other people’s stories rather than documenting my own narrative for the public,” the Maryland native reflected.

Jay’s essay comes after more than a year of silence about her public split from the Broadway star.

Slater first filed divorce papers in July 2023, amid rumors of a romance with Grande, who split from her husband of two years, Dalton Gomez, later that same month. The new couple reportedly met on the set of Wicked, although sources have insisted they were both separated from their respective spouses before beginning their own romance.

Insiders previously told TMZ that Jay was devastated by the split and felt her husband had let the family down.