Ariana Grande’s new beau, Ethan Slater, has her brother Frankie’s stamp of approval.
“I love him. He’s a very sweet guy,” Frankie said of Ariana’s boyfriend and Wicked costar in an interview with TooFab published on Wednesday, June 5.
In fact, Frankie, 41, has been familiar with Slater long before he was cast as Boq in the upcoming Wicked movie.
“I’ve been a fan of him ever since seeing him in SpongeBob,” Frankie said of Slater’s role in the SpongeBob SquarePants Broadway musical. “And I got to interview him when I was doing the SpongeBob SquarePants podcast. And the Broadway community is a tight-knit family.”
Frankie continued to gush that Slater is “very sweet” and that he couldn’t be more thrilled for his sister.
“He’s a great guy. Ethan’s a wonderful guy,” said Frankie. “He’s very sweet. He’s very, very, very sweet. I just… I adore him.”
“I’ve always just said this, all I want is for my sister to be happy and when she’s happy I’m happy. So I’m very happy,” he added.
Us Weekly confirmed in July 2023 that Ariana, 30, and Slater, 32, were in a “fairly new” relationship after meeting on the U.K. set of Wicked. Ariana had recently called it quits with her husband of two years, Dalton Gomez, while Slater filed for divorce from his wife, Lilly Jay, with whom he shares one son, the same month. (Ariana and Gomez finalized their divorce in March 2024.)
“They’re a little dorky and [both] theater geeks at heart. She loves that about him. It’s mutual,” an insider exclusively told Us of the couple in November 2023. “Their relationship is blossoming. It’s effortless with zero drama.”
In October 2023, a separate source told Us that the couple had moved in together in New York City.
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“Ethan informed his friends and soon-to-be ex-wife that he’s living with Ariana full-time in New York,” the insider said.
Ariana publicly addressed negativity about her relationship with Slater in a February 2024 interview on the “Zach Sang Show” on the Amazon Music channel on Twitch.
“I feel like we don’t need to go into any specifics, but, of course, there’s like an insatiable frustration, inexplicable, hellish feeling with watching people, misunderstand the people you love and you and anything,” the singer said.
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