Ariana Grande broke down in tears during her Los Angeles concert on Saturday night, pausing her Eternal Sunshine Tour set at Crypto.com Arena as reports circulated that she and Ethan Slater had split after three years together.
The emotional moment came as Grande was preparing to sing Hampstead, when the crowd erupted into cheers and applause and the singer briefly lost her words. A short video later appeared on her main Instagram page, showing her looking out into the arena under bright stage lights. The reported split had happened several months earlier. Nothing is confirmed yet so everything should be taken with a grain of salt.
The LA Moment That Stopped The Show
Grande told the crowd they were doing too much, in the affectionate way pop stars sometimes scold a room full of people who are clearly adoring them. 'You can't do this to me, you know what I mean, because you know what's going to happen,' she said, before adding, 'You know I'm a Cancer. This is going to happen.'
What followed was not the polished, perfectly timed emotion that stars are often expected to serve. It was messier than that, and more human. Grande said the reaction was 'so overwhelming in the most beautiful way ever' and thanked fans for being loving, safe and present through what she described as 'all these chapters and all of these years.'
She also said it had been seven years since she had last stood on stage in front of this audience, a line that landed with obvious force in a room already half in tears and half in screams. The singer, who is now 32, also joked that she could finally see the crowd properly because she was wearing contact lenses for the first time on tour.
It was a small detail, but a good one. Suddenly the whole thing felt less like a carefully managed pop moment and more like a person trying to keep herself together in front of thousands.
She ended that stretch by saying she was grateful to have such a loving presence in her life, then dropped into the kind of unfiltered language that people use when they are trying not to cry. 'Holy s***. Holy f***. Thank you,' she told the crowd.
Ariana Grande breaks down in tears at LA concert after Ethan Slater split: ‘This is so overwhelming’ https://t.co/ZkmXVW6k9J pic.twitter.com/6I1U18a0S0
— New York Post (@nypost) June 15, 2026
The Reported Break-Up
The news came after Grande and Ethan Slater had ended their relationship after three years of dating. The pair had decided to go their separate ways several months ago after significant consideration and that they still remained friends.
Grande, meanwhile, has been focusing on the tour, and Slater was not seen at her opening weekend performances, according to Daily Mail.
The pair met while filming the Wicked musical adaptation, which was released in 2024, with Wicked: For Good due in 2025. Their romance was first reported in July 2023, just days after news broke of Grande's separation from Dalton Gomez.
Slater had also recently separated from his wife, clinical psychologist Lilly Jay, with whom he shares a son born in August 2022. At the time, sources claimed Grande and Slater did not begin dating until both had separated from their spouses.
Grande's love life has long attracted the kind of scrutiny that follows major pop stars whether they like it or not, and this one has had a particularly noisy track record. Before Slater, she was married to real estate agent Dalton Gomez.
They were linked in March 2020, engaged in December that year and married in May 2021. Their separation was reported in July 2023 and the divorce was finalised in March the following year.
Before that, she dated Pete Davidson in 2018 and Mac Miller from late 2016 to April 2018. Miller died four months after their break-up, following an accidental drug overdose at 26.
What Comes Next On Tour
Grande launched The Eternal Sunshine Tour in Oakland earlier this month, and the Los Angeles run is only part of a packed schedule that stretches across the United States before a lengthy London residency. The singer will next head to Inglewood's Kia Forum for three shows beginning on 17 June, with further dates in Austin, Chicago, Atlanta and Brooklyn.
Her London run is set to take in 10 nights at the O2 Arena from 15 August through 1 September, and that stretch will close the tour. The tour is her first in seven years, since the Sweetener World Tour in 2019, which ran for 97 dates across North America and Europe.
Grande has also been keeping one eye on the next chapter of her recording career. Her album Eternal Sunshine arrived in 2024 and included tracks such as 'Yes, And?' and 'We Can't Be Friends (Wait For Your Love).' She is also preparing the release of her eighth studio album, Petal, due on 31 July, and in May she posted a Reel explaining that the record was about 'something that is full of life growing through the cracks of something that is cold and hard and challenging.'
She also said the album was about breaking away from 'negative attachments,' whether internal or external, and suggested listeners would be able to take from it what they needed. That alone feels fairly on brand for this era of Grande, who is balancing tour life, new music and a very public personal story that refuses to stay neatly offstage.
The pop star is also expected back on screen after playing Glinda in Wicked and Wicked: For Good, while Focker-In-Law is due in cinemas on 25 November. She is also still attached to Sunday In The Park With George in London next summer.
