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Though plenty of positive messages were left on both posts, Slater's comment section has been limited since the initial wave of backlash to his relationship with Grande. The pair met on set of the movie musical in late 2022, a time when both actors were married to their previous partners. Having welcomed a child with his high school sweetheart months before filming Wicked, Slater faced particularly intense scrutiny once news of his relationship with Grande went public in July 2023.
While anonymous sources have shared mixed messages about their relationship timeline, Grande has vehemently defended Slater's character. “There couldn’t be a less accurate depiction of a human being than the one that the tabloids spread about him,” she told Vanity Fair in September. “No one on this earth tries harder or spreads themselves thinner to be there for the people that he loves and cares about. There is no one on this earth with a better heart, and that is something that no bullshit tabloid can rewrite in real life.”
For his part, Slater told GQ that the negative attention was “really difficult” to process alongside the “big changes” happening in his private life. “It’s really hard to see people who don’t know anything about what’s happening commenting on it and speculating, and then getting things wrong about the people you love,” he said in October, before switching gears to gush about Grande.
“I’m just really, really proud of Ari and the work she’s done on this,” he said at the time. “She’s poured herself into it. I’m really proud that I got to be there for that part of it, and I’m really excited to be there for this next step of it when the world gets to see the amazing thing that she did.”
Thank goodness for today. Wicked is in theaters now.
