Ariana Grande and Ethan Slater have broken up

Question

The claim that "Ariana Grande and Ethan Slater have broken up" is misleading. 

There is no factual evidence stating whether or not the couple has split. According to Cosmopolitan, Rumors circulated after an alleged inside told The Daily Mail, "Ariana and Ethan have been on and off for most of this year." He chose not to attend the MTV VMAs with her because they'd had an argument just days before. But they made up soon after. They've both been running hot and cold with each other." However, Cosmopolitan notes that Ariana and Ethan aren't too public about their relationship They do not walk the red carpet together or are caught by the paparazzi, so it's hard to determine if Ethan's absence from the VMAs is proof of a breakup. In fact, Slater later congratulated Ariana Grande's win for the VMA's Video of the Year award on his Instagram story. Just days after when being interviewed at the Gen V season 2 premiere, he spoke briefly about Ariana, joking he'd "send videos of Ariana's upcoming tour to a reporter from People." Ethan also shared more pictures of Ariana Grande celebrating the upcoming Wicked: For Good movie, while Ariana "liked" the Gen V post that Ethan shared to his Instagram story. (Cosmopolitan)

Yahoo! Entertainment also reports on the alleged "breakup," commenting that there are tabloids and blind items suggesting that Ariana Grande and Ethan Slater's relationship is in trouble, and "it's worth taking those with a grain of salt." Yahoo also mentions Ethan's absence from the VMAS, but includes Ethan's sharing of Ariana's acceptance speech on his Instagram story and other content supporting Grande. The pair have both also "liked" one another's Wicked: For Good cast portraits on Instagram, and Grande "liked" Ethan's Gen V post shortly after it was published. Yahoo overall states that we have learned "not much" regarding the status of their relationship. (Yahoo! Entertainment).

Answer 1

Upon sifting through numerous sources and doing my own digging on social media, I have found that there is not enough information to prove or disprove this claim. Rumors began circulating back in early September when Slater was not seen accompanying Grande at the MTV Music Video Awards ceremony. Reportedly, Ariana Grande was seen at the ceremony with both of her parents, brother, and brother-in-law. This was highlighted in an article published by People Magazine. While it is often frowned upon to utilize sources that focus primarily on celebrity news and human-interest stories because they often contain significant bias, I have chosen People Magazine as a starting point solely because it has been in operation for roughly 50 years, and has a relatively high reliability score according to Ad Fontes Media’s nonpartisan Media Bias Chart. This ultimately led me to assume that People Magazine was a good place to begin investigating this claim. Moving on, I took it upon myself to look at Ethan Slater’s posts and likes on Instagram to see if his internet activity could shed any light on the state of his relationship with Ariana Grande. Ultimately, I found that Ethan Slater posted a clip of Ariana Grande’s acceptance speech on his story following the MTV MVA awards on September 7, 2025. While this may sound insignificant, in a recent study conducted by the Parkview Health Research Repository, approximately 61.3% of participants in the study were classified as “clean breakers,” which include people who did very little monitoring, interacting, or communicating with their ex-partner on social media. When looking at the results from this study and comparing them to the situation at hand, we’d think it’d be safe to assume that the two have not broken up, as they still monitor and interact with each other on social media. However, we must recognize that these are the personal lives of celebrities we are talking about. There is no way to truly know the state of the relationship between Slater and Grande unless an official statement is released in an interview or online.

Comments

Great fact check and good understanding of sources.