• Ariana Grande is dating her "Wicked" costar Ethan Slater.
• Slater is a Broadway actor who rose to fame starring as Spongebob in "The Spongebob Musical."
• Here's what to know about Slater, from his notable roles to his relationship with ex-wife Lilly Jay. 

Ariana Grande and Ethan Slater's relationship is facing renewed interest amid the release of "Wicked" and a personal essay published by Lilly Jay, Slater's ex-wife.

In July 2023, multiple outlets including People magazine and TMZ reported that Grande, 31, and her "Wicked" costar Slater, 32, were dating. The reports came days after news broke of Grande's separation from her husband, Dalton Gomez. 

Grande and Slater presumably met through their roles in the two-part film adaptation of the "Wicked" musical. Grande portrays Glinda, the popular girl at Shiz University, and Slater plays Boq, a classmate from Munchinland who has an unrequited crush on her but becomes the love interest of Elphaba's younger sister Nessarose (Marissa Bode).

Here's everything to know about Slater.  

Slater is an actor who rose to fame playing Spongebob on Broadway

For his star turn as the plucky yellow sponge in the 2017 musical adaptation of "Spongebob Squarepants," Slater received several accolades, including a Tony Award nomination and a Drama Desk Award win in 2018. He also starred in the Classic Stage Company's production of "Assassins," which ran until January 2021, and has had roles on shows including "Law & Order: SVU" and "Fosse/Verdon." 

Slater more recently starred in the Broadway revival of "Spamalot," which closed in April after a 24-week run. 

Shortly after news broke of his rumored relationship with Grande, Slater's Instagram page was made private. When viewed by Business Insider before Slater made the account private, the page mostly featured clips from his past and coming projects, as well as a blurry selfie with his then-wife, Jay. 

Slater shares a son with his ex-wife, Lilly Jay

Slater and Jay, a clinical psychologist in perinatal mental health and child development, met in high school and married in 2018. They welcomed their first child together, a son, in August 2022. 

In People's July 2023 report about Grande and Slater's relationship, a source said that Slater and Jay had separated, though they didn't give an exact timeframe for the separation. TMZ reported that Slater filed for divorce from Jay on July 26, 2023.

Jay later addressed Slater's romance with Grande in an interview with Page Six, calling the singer "not a girl's girl" and saying her family was "just collateral damage" in the controversy. 

Grande first sparked her own divorce rumors after she was spotted at a Wimbledon match without her wedding ring or engagement ring on July 16, 2023.

A day after the singer was seen without her rings at Wimbledon, TMZ reported that Grande and Gomez had been separated for several months and were "heading for divorce." The couple had been together since 2020 and married in 2021.

Grande and Gomez simultaneously filed for divorce in September 2023. Their separation date was listed in court documents as February 20, 2023.

Jay recently discussed her and Slater's divorce in an essay for The Cut, published on Thursday. In her essay, Jay avoided directly addressing Slater and Grande's relationship and instead focused on how her highly publicized divorce affected her. She also said that she and Slater continue to co-parent their child. 

"While our partnership has changed, our parenthood has not," Jay wrote. "Both of us fiercely love our son 100% of the time, regardless of how our parenting time is divided. As for me, days with my son are sunny. Days when I can't escape the promotion of a movie associated with the saddest days of my life are darker."

Libby Torres contributed to an earlier version of this story.

• Teri Hatcher, 59, doesn't enjoy dating at her age.
• Hatcher said unlike what people think, men are not "lining up outside her door."
• She also feels like it would be "too much" to date younger men.

At 59, Teri Hatcher would rather spend time with her cat than date.

During an interview on Wednesday with Sherri Shepherd on the talk show "Sherri," the "Desperate Housewives" star said she doesn't date much anymore.

"I used to date, and you'd look across the table at the guy, and you'd think, 'OK, I wonder if we're going to end up in bed together. And now I look across the table, and I just think, 'When am I going to have to change this guy's diaper?'" she said, adding, "It's just not that fun anymore."

When asked if she would consider dating younger men, Hatcher said it would "just be too much."

"I'd just feel like I'd have to be keeping up. I'd have to, like, 'How do I look in a bikini today?' and I just don't care," she said.

The actor was previously married twice, to Markus Leithold from 1988 to 1989 and to Jon Tenney from 1994 to 2003, whom she shares a daughter with.

Now, people around her say that men must be "lining up out the door," she said. "And I'm like, 'No, no. I open it once in a while, and there's nobody there."

Hatcher, who stars in the holiday movie "How to Fall in Love By Christmas," said she mostly "dates" her cat. When she's on Duolingo learning French, her cat jumps onto her chest and sits there.

"It's better than any date well that you could possibly go on," she said.

In 2019, Hatcher told People that she is content with being single.

"I have been single for a very long time but there is nothing lonely about my life. I want to remove the stigma of that," she said.

A representative for Hatcher did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.

Dating later in life

After getting out of a long-term relationship, Jennie Young downloaded her first dating app at 50.

She quickly grew frustrated by the pool of potential matches on the app. "There were a lot of bad actors, and the behavior wasn't just annoying; it was deeply problematic," she previously wrote for BI.

Young, a professor of rhetoric and women and gender studies, responded by starting a project called the Burned Haystack Dating Method. This method encourages daters to filter out time wasters and red flags.

Other older women enjoy being able to experiment with dating apps.

Carolina Gonzalez previously told BI that it's "weird to go out with anybody" after being in a long marriage.

"Though there is still a hope you will meet someone and fall in love, but I am probably never going to meet someone and have what I had before," she said.

Still, she enjoys being able to meet different people of all ages. Her life is not shutting down with age, she said, but opening up.

And some prefer to stay single. Bella DePaulo, 70, previously told BI that she has never been in a relationship and doesn't intend to be in one.

"I'm happy and flourishing because I'm single, not in spite of it," she said.