In a development that has sent tremors through the teacup tempest of celebrity journalism, it is now confirmed: Ariana Grande and Ethan Slater, the couple who met on the set of a film adaptation of a musical adaptation of a novel based on a book about a wizard, have parted ways. The three-year romance, which began in 2022 with all the subtlety of a glitter bomb in a library, has ended.
Let us pause to consider the sheer, glorious absurdity of this. Here we have two performers, one of whom once sang about being ‘thankful, next’ and the other who played a sponge in a Broadway musical about a sponge. They fell in love on the yellow brick road of a movie set, a road paved with good intentions and publicists. And now, like a Wicked Witch with a bucket of water, it’s over.
I imagine the breakup itself was a masterpiece of modern theatricality. Perhaps it happened over a plate of organic quinoa in a Hollywood hills restaurant, with a sigh so melodramatic it would have made Shakespeare weep. Or maybe it was a text message, a string of emojis that spelled out: ‘We need to speak.’ But of course, the official narrative will be a press release, sanitised and spin-doctored to within an inch of its life. Anonymized sources will ‘confirm’ that they ‘grew apart,’ a phrase that is journalistic shorthand for ‘I’m bored and the money’s run out.’
But why should we care? Why do these two beautiful, talented, fabulously wealthy creatures matter? Because in a world of real crises – war, famine, the price of a pint at the King’s Head – we cling to the soap opera of celebrity. It is a comforting lie, a distraction from the fact that we are all hurtling towards oblivion. The Grande-Slater split is the human condition writ large: love is a chemical reaction, fame is a fever, and we are all just dancing on the edge of a volcano in sequins.
What will be the fallout? Expect a flurry of interviews, a memoir by June, and perhaps a duet so anguished it will make Adele sound cheerful. Ariana will release an album called something like ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spoilt Mind,’ and Ethan will return to the stage, playing a heartbroken sponge who discovers the meaning of life in a crumbling Broadway theatre. The tabloids, those tireless engines of trivia, will mine every detail. They will dissect Instagram posts, decode lyrics, and interview anyone who once held a door for them. It is a feeding frenzy, and we are all sharks.
But in the midst of this maelstrom of nonsense, there is a glimmer of truth. Love, as they say, is a many-splintered thing. It is messy and irrational and it does not care about contracts or contracts or the third act. Ariana and Ethan were not gods; they were just two people who fell in love on a film set and then, like all things in Hollywood, it ended. So raise a glass of something chilled and overpriced. To the end of an era. To the beginning of a new single. And to the sheer, unadulterated absurdity of it all.
