As a child, I was a huge fan of Nickelodeon’s hit TV show Victorious, and its sequel Sam and Cat, for one main reason: Ariana Grande. I pride myself on attending all three of her sold-out arena tours, and I was addicted to wearing her signature cat-ears headband in my tween years.
Since Grande was cast in the movie Wicked, fans like me have been eager for the star to come back into the spotlight, but this definitely wasn’t the way we expected. Scrolling through X (thanks for the name change, Elon), I saw that Grande had divorced her husband, real estate agent Dalton Gomez. This came as a shock to fans, as the pair had just celebrated their two-year wedding anniversary in May. Then another bombshell hit—Grande’s marriage ended because of an affair with Spongebob.
Reading that you may be thinking, “Spongebob?!” Yes, Grande and her Wicked co-star Ethan Slater, who played Spongebob in “SpongeBob SquarePants: The Broadway Musical,” had an affair while filming Wicked in London. I had trouble believing this story at first, I mean, how could Ariana give her whole marriage away for someone who resembles Chuckie from The Rugrats?! Slater doesn’t even closely resemble Grande’s typical “type,” as ex-fiancé Pete Davidson and her ex-husband look like they could be related.
At the time of the alleged affair, Slater had been married to wife Lilly Jay for four years and currently has a one-year-old baby. It seemed as though there was an endless supply of information that kept coming out about the new relationship, thanks to Jay feeding stories to news outlets like the Daily Mail and TMZ, saying that Grande was “not a girls’ girl” and solely placing blame on Grande for ending her 10-year-long relationship.
Ultimately, this story is crazy, but what was even crazier was the amount of online discourse and how many people actually care about this situation. Superfans of Grande created memorable memes and pledged to stick by her through this rough patch, while the rest of the world seemed to gang up on Grande—because clearly Slater is innocent and Grande put her pop-star witch curse on him. While all the Spongebob memes are funny, there is a fine line to walk between poking fun at a situation, to “slut-shaming” and sending death threats to people, even if they are celebrities.
Sometimes, we all get a little too absorbed in celebrity drama, though. It was after my seventh blog post about Taylor Swift’s summer fling with 1975 singer Matty Healy that I decided I needed a break. Healy is known for his controversial persona and outlandish comments, and Swift began to be blamed for Healy’s actions as if it was her fault that he acted the way he did. They even began to make open letters to Swift, asking her to apologize for Healy’s actions. Shouldn’t Tay-Tay have seen the red flags? The man who eats raw meat on stage as a part of his concert isn’t a good person? Shocker! This situation especially shows how fans set unreachable expectations for their idols and judge them on a moral high-horse, as if they aren’t just people too. No one person is perfect (no, not even Taylor Swift), and not even Swift is immune from dating that guy, the one everyone warns you about.
I always ask myself the question when looking at online discourse: Do people actually care? But the answer is yes, crazy, celebrity-obsessed people actually really do care about the actions of people they don’t know. In the end, though, are any of us really immune to the alternate reality of celebrity craziness? I mean, how many people would seriously turn down mega-pop star Ariana Grande? Personally, I would come close to giving up my firstborn child if it meant that I would even spend a minute of time with her or some of my other favorite celebrities. However, in my real life, I’m still going to enjoy judging and giggling about celebrities and their screwed-up relationships, but every now and then, me and my millions of chronically online kindred spirits need to occasionally turn off our phones, go outside and touch grass.
