In a development that has sent shockwaves through the glittery, self-absorbed ecosystem of Hollywood, the tabloid gods have decreed that Ariana Grande and Ethan Slater have called it quits. Three years. Three years of carefully curated Instagram posts, of red carpet appearances where they smiled with the precise wattage required, of denying and then confirming and then denying again. And now, nothing. The void. The silence where once there was the sound of two agents negotiating a joint statement.
Let us not pretend this is a tragedy. This is Hollywood. Love here is a renewable resource, like scandal or plastic surgery. But the sheer theatricality of the split demands our attention. Here were two people who met on the set of a movie musical, a genre built on the premise that spontaneous singing can resolve any conflict. And yet, they could not sing their way through the mundane horror of a real relationship. Who could? Not I, certainly. My own romantic history reads like a series of poorly attended fringe productions.
The details, as strained through the sieve of unnamed sources, are predictably vapid. 'Irreconcilable differences,' that old chestnut. Or perhaps one of them left the cap off the toothpaste. In Hollywood, the line between a minor annoyance and a full-blown existential crisis is measured only by the size of the legal team involved. They will now enter the phase of 'conscious uncoupling,' a term so sterile it could be used to describe the process of removing a tumour. Which, in a sense, it is.
Grande, a woman whose voice can shatter glass but whose personal life seems perpetually trapped in a revolving door, will no doubt channel this pain into a chart-topping album. Slater, a man whose name I must Google every time I type it, will return to the Broadway stage, where audiences will applaud his 'bravery' in the face of heartbreak. The cycle continues. The machine grinds on.
But let us spare a thought for the real victims here: the publicists. They are the unsung heroes of every celebrity breakup, the ones who must craft the narrative while their clients sob into $400 smoothies. They will release a statement that uses words like 'gratitude' and 'respect,' when what they really mean is 'thank God it's over.'
In the end, this is just another story in the eternal soap opera of fame. We watch because we are vultures, because we need to feel that our own messy, unglamorous relationships have some dignity by comparison. And they do. At least when we break up, we don't have to announce it to the world. Unless we are very, very drunk. But that's a different column.
So farewell, Ariana and Ethan. Your three years of carefully managed bliss have ended, and we are left with the hollow echo of a thousand magazine covers. The show must go on, as they say. And it will. With different actors. And better lighting.
As for me, I'll be at the bar. The gin is cold, the music is loud, and the only breakup I care about is the one between the ice and the glass. Cheers.
