Ethan Slater‘s ex-wife, Lilly JayShe talks about the impact the couple’s highly publicized split had on her.

“No one gets married thinking about getting divorced…but I do Really I never thought I would get a divorce. “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,” Jay wrote in an essay for The cut titled “How Do You Feel After My Divorce?” The title of the article, published on Thursday, December 19, is a nod to Jay’s work as a therapist.

Slater, 32, filed for divorce in July 2023, a month before his and Jay’s son’s first birthday. In the same month, news of Slater’s romance with him came Evil Costar Ariana Grande. Jay admitted that he struggled with the ubiquity of the internet Evil Press tour in her essay.

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Ethan Slater’s estranged wife Lilly Jay is speaking out after news of their split – and his romance with Ariana Grande – broke. “(Ariana’s) the story really. Not a girl’s girl. “My family is just collateral damage,” Jay told Page Six on Thursday, July 27, before addressing Grande’s marriage to Dalton Gomez. “The story is yours (…)

“The days with my son are sunny. Days are darker when I can’t escape the publicity for a film tied to the saddest days of my life,” she wrote.

Jay recalled the “distance” that grew between her and Slater as they dealt with raising a newborn while he was filming the first installment Evilwhich hit theaters in November. (Slater met Grande, 31, on the film’s set in December 2022.)

“As a perinatal psychologist, I knew all the statistics – how vulnerable a marriage is in the postpartum period, how important connection to community is in preventing depression and anxiety, how new parenthood affects the entire family – but I am confident “Moved to another country with my family, 2 month old baby and my husband to support his career,” she wrote. “Consumed by the magic and mundanity of new motherhood, I didn’t understand the growing distance between us.”

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Ethan Slater has finalized his divorce from Lilly Jay amid his romance with Ariana Grande. Us Weekly can confirm that the couple reached an agreement on Thursday, September 12th. Details of their documents remain under wraps. Slater filed divorce papers in July 2023. The couple – high school sweethearts – tied the knot (…)

As her and Slater’s divorce made headlines, Jay began to “deeply miss the life of invisibility” that she had intentionally created for the benefit of her patients. Despite her desire to never be “fully known” to the people in her care, strangers suddenly knew intimate details about Jay’s life.

After grieving this seismic shift, Jay tried to think about how her own experiences might help her patients, who she notes have so far been “silent” about their public divorce.

“Perhaps we can reflect on my messy, not-so-personal life in this way: a dose of my own loss, my anger, my powerlessness, my sadness that helps me hold yours,” she wrote. “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.”

Similarly hopeful, Jay shared that she has “come to believe that without the life I planned with my high school sweetheart, there is a life of sweetness waiting for me and my child.”

Related: Timeline of the relationship between Ethan Slater and his wife Lilly Jay

Ethan Slater and his wife Lilly Jay’s relationship lasted more than a decade before they parted ways – and he began dating Wicked co-star Ariana Grande. The Broadway star – best known for his role as SpongeBob SquarePants in the musical of the same name – fell in love with Jay in 2012. The couple continued (…)

The psychologist also emphasized that “although the relationship between her and Slater has changed, our parenting has not. We both love our son 100 percent, regardless of how our parenting time is divided.”

When news of Grande and Slater’s relationship first broke, some people speculated that Slater had cheated on Jay with the pop star. Grande and Slater have both suggested that the narrative is false.

“It’s really hard to see people who know nothing about what’s happening commenting and speculating and then doing something wrong about the people you love,” Slater said of the situation during an interview with GQ.

Meanwhile, Grande told us Vanity Fair in September that it was “disappointing” to “see so many people believing the worst version” of events.