See Ariana Grande break silence on plan to step back after touring
Ariana Grande opened up in Chicago about taking a break from work and stepping away from the public eye.
They always find their way back.
Ariana Grande further fueled speculation of a rekindled romance with ex-boyfriend Ricky Álvarez by posting photos of the two of them in an Aug. 12 Instagram carousel. Halfway into the 20-photo post, a picture with their heads cropped out of the frame shows Álvarez with his arm around Grande’s shoulders as she captures a mirror selfie.
In a subsequent photo, Álvarez appears to be taking a blurry mirror selfie with the singer. Grande, 33, tagged him in both images, and Álvarez shared this picture on his Instagram story.
The pop star going Instagram official with her former backup dancer, whom she dated a decade ago, comes on the heels of lyric changes she made on her Eternal Sunshine Tour this summer.
“Wrote some songs about Ricky / We always find our way back,” she sang while performing “Thank U, Next” during the Brooklyn, New York, tour stop July 13. Prior to this, she also revised the words to “I know he’s still got my back” and “Now they still kinda slap.”
Álvarez and Grande met when he was hired to perform on her first world tour, the Honeymoon Tour, in 2015.
Grande, who announced Aug. 2 that she is “taking a step back from visibility” after her tour wraps, quietly split from her “Wicked” costar Ethan Slater earlier this year after three years of dating.
The two endured backlash from the public as they pursued a relationship amid divorces from their respective spouses. In September 2023, Grande and real estate agent Dalton Gomez initiated divorce proceedings following a months-long separation, while Slater divorced wife Lilly Jay in July 2023.
Grande was previously engaged to “Saturday Night Live” alumnus Pete Davidson.