Ethan Slater’s Ex-Wife, Clinical Psychologist Lilly Jay, Says She Never Imagined Getting Divorced

For much of her life, clinical psychologist Lilly Jay kept personal details about herself under wraps. Of course, there were certain things she couldn’t avoid sharing, like her credentials and education, since those are essential to her work. But beyond her impressive career allowing her to wear the "Dr." badge proudly, Lilly's life is another interesting aspect: she was once married to actor Ethan Slater.

Yes, the same Ethan who’s now dating Ariana Grande.

Lilly and Ethan were married before his romance with Ariana began on the Wicked set in 2023. While Ethan and Ariana are still together, Lilly has kept quiet about the details of her split from Ethan. Their divorce was finalized in September 2024, and she’s stayed mum on her connection to him since.

That is, until she opened up in a candid essay for The Cut published on Dec. 19, 2024. Here’s what we know about Ethan’s ex-wife, Lilly Jay, and what she had to say.

She’s Ethan Slater’s ex-wife, of course, but there’s so much more to her that that! Lilly is a clinical psychologist specializing in perinatal mental health and child development, based in New York City.

Since October 2024, she’s been a licensed clinical psychologist at Prospect Psychology, while also holding the same role at MindWell Center, LLP since August 2023, according to her LinkedIn bio.

Before that, Lilly worked at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia for a year, and from August 2020 to August 2021, she was a clinical psychology intern with The Help Group’s Stepping Stones Intensive Day Treatment Program.

Her professional path includes several other notable roles that led her up to her current position at Prospect Psychology.

Lilly graduated from Amherst College in 2014, pursued psychology studies at Columbia University from 2014 to 2015, and earned her doctorate in psychology from Long Island University in 2020.

Lilly Jay and Ethan Slater married in the fall of 2018, welcomed their first child together in the fall of 2022, and separated by mid-2023, marking the end of their five-year marriage. Their divorce was finalized in 2024. In her essay for The Cut, Lilly revealed that Ethan was her high school sweetheart, and she never imagined she’d one day be divorcing him.

While Ethan and Lilly had managed to keep their lives divided and together at the same time, somewhere along the way, that line of division became too wide to close.

Even though they had welcomed a son in 2022, and Lilly was aware of "all the statistics — how vulnerable a marriage is in the postpartum period, how vital community connection is in preventing depression and anxiety, how new parenthood impacts a whole family," she says she "confidently moved to another country with my 2-month-old baby and my husband to support his career."

At that point, their relationship seemed healthy.

Although she knew Ethan’s life was very much in the spotlight due to his work, Lilly took steps early on to protect her privacy so she could flourish in her own career. She even deleted her Facebook page the week before her 18th birthday.

Lilly explained the importance of keeping her private life separate from her professional one, saying, "By reducing the white noise of personal information, or self-disclosures, therapists provide patients with a unique opportunity to feel connected to another person by care alone."

But somewhere in the mix, things shifted. While many are quick to point fingers at Ariana for breaking up a happy home — especially as she was separating from her husband, Dalton Gomez, at the time — there are still missing pieces to this puzzle. Nevertheless, the divorce took Lilly by surprise. She admits she never thought she’d be divorced, "especially not in the shadow of my husband’s new relationship with a celebrity."

What’s done is done, though, and now Lilly is focused on moving forward with her life and career. Through her essay, she extends an apology for having her personal life "pryed" open. "So consider this essay my message in a bottle sent out to sea to maybe wash up at my patients’ feet someday: I’m sorry I can’t be invisible anymore (really, more than you know, I’m sorry)."