Why Ariana Grande and Ethan Slater weren't together at the Golden Globes

The 2025 Golden Globes took place in LA last night, and it was the glamorous kick-off to awards season that we had all hoped for. As well as a potential engagement soft-launch from Zendaya, there was an adorable PDA moment between Timothée Chalamet and Kylie Jenner which has since gone viral, and host Nikki Glaser is already being praised for holding the show together following Jo Koy's controversial appearance last year.

And while many A-listers were unmissable at the Golden Globes last night (did you see Emma Stone's new pixie cut? And Zoe Saldana looking radiant in her sparkling Saint Laurent gown?) there were some noticeably absent actors, too. While Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo were front and centre thanks to their Wicked nominations, Ariana's boyfriend Ethan Slater didn't walk the red carpet and was nowhere to be seen at the ceremony.

Ariana and Cynthia, who were both nominated for individual awards, walked the red carpet together at The Beverly Hills Hotel and later sat together as they watched the show. When Wicked won the award for Cinematic and Box Office Achievement, it was collected by director Jon M. Chu and a handful of the Wicked cast, including Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Yeoh. However, Ethan - who stars in the film as Boq - was not spotted with his co-stars, or his girlfriend.

Ethan and Ariana have kept their relationship out of the spotlight during the Wicked press tour following the criticism when they started dating in 2023. Ariana had recently split from her ex-husband, Dalton Gomez, while Ethan's ex-wife Lilly Jay - with whom he shares a two year old son - penned an essay on the difficulties of their divorce.

But there's a very simple reason why Ariana and Ethan weren't sat side by side during the ceremony; he appears to have decided to skip the Golden Globes altogether. While it could be down to the fact that he wasn't individually nominated for any awards, he wasn't the only actor from the main Wicked cast to forgo the event as Jonathan Bailey (who plays Fiyero) was also absent.

In an interview with GQ late last year, Ethan opened up about his relationship with Ariana and called her 'a genius'. He said: "I'm just really, really proud of Ari and the work she's done on [Wicked]. 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."