Ariana Grande spotted with ex Ricky Alvarez after Ethan Slater split

Ariana Grande was seen dining with Ricky Alvarez in Austin on Thursday, June 25, during her birthday week, just one day before she turned 33. The sighting followed a June 24 lyric change in "Thank U, Next" that appeared to point back to Alvarez, reigniting attention on a relationship that ended years ago but never left Grande’s public story.

Grande was in Austin for her Eternal Sunshine Tour, her first tour in about seven years, with dates tied to her 2024 album Eternal Sunshine and its 2025 reissue, Brighter Days Ahead. The run has put her back on the road in a city where the public has been watching not just the setlist, but the stage-by-stage signals fans think might map her private life.

Grande and Alvarez dated in 2015 and 2016 after meeting during her Honeymoon Tour in 2015. Their romance became widely known in 2016 through the now-infamous donut shop incident that turned a fleeting personal moment into a long-running internet reference point. That history is part of why a single dinner and a lyric tweak were enough to set off a fresh round of speculation.

The renewed attention also landed against the backdrop of Grande’s split from Ethan Slater, whom she had reportedly been with for nearly three years. Those reports described the breakup as amicable and mutually decided after careful consideration, but the timing of the Austin sighting ensured the online conversation moved quickly from relationship news to fan theory. Grande’s personal life has repeatedly been folded into the entertainment economy’s appetite for clues, where a restaurant sighting, a song revision, and a familiar name can be turned into a full narrative within hours.