Dr Lilly Jay is "not ashamed" about how her marriage to Ethan Slater fell apart so publicly.
The psychologist married actor Ethan, 32, in 2018 and has a two-year-old son - whose name has not been released publicly - but they filed for divorce in July 2023 and he quickly struck up a relationship with his 'Wicked' co-star Ariana Grande.
In an essay for The Cut, she wrote: "Motherhood, I have learned, fills your time but not your mind. In the countless hours I spend rocking my son to sleep, pushing his stroller, marveling at his sweaty little hands grasping a crayon, I work diligently on my private project of accepting the sudden public downfall of my marriage. This, I tell myself, is nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to hide."
Lilly noted that she has had to "slowly but surely" come to terms with the fact that her life is not going to go as she had originally hoped, as she had been in a relationship with Ethan since they were teenagers and thought they had a future together.
She said: "Slowly but surely, I have come to believe that in the absence of the life I planned with my high-school sweetheart, a lifetime of sweetness is waiting for me and my child. While our partnership has changed, our parenthood has not. Both of us fiercely love our son 100 percent of the time, regardless of how our parenting time is divided.
Lilly added that the "darker" days in her life are when she "cannot escape" the mammoth promotion for the musical blockbuster - which is the unofficial prequel to 'The Wizard of Oz' - starring the 'Into You' hitmaker and her ex-husband, but she prefers the days she gets to spend with her son.
She added: "As for me, days with my son are sunny. Days when I can’t escape the promotion of a movie associated with the saddest days of my life are darker."
