Are Ariana Grande, Ricky Alvarez Dating Again? Fans Go Wild as Pair Was Spotted Together Twice in One Week

Ariana Grande was seen spending the Fourth of July weekend in Florida with her ex-boyfriend Ricky Alvarez, after the pair were spotted grocery shopping together in the US just days earlier, fuelling fresh questions over whether the former couple are dating again. The renewed Ariana Grande and Ricky Alvarez buzz comes barely weeks after reports that Grande had split from Wicked co-star Ethan Slater.

Grande and Alvarez, a dancer, first dated between 2015 and 2016, a period immortalised in her hit single Thank U, Next. Their relationship pre-dated her marriages and later high-profile romances, but the friendship between them appears to have endured. The latest public outings arrive at a particularly delicate moment, with the singer in the middle of her The Eternal Sunshine Tour, her first run of shows since 2019, and navigating the fallout from her break-up with Slater.

Sparking Speculation With Weekend Reunion

The first fresh sighting of Ariana Grande and Ricky Alvarez came when the pair were photographed on a low-key supermarket run, leaving a Whole Foods store with several shopping bags in hand. Grande, 33, kept things casual in a grey hooded cardigan layered over a white vest and light blue jeans. Alvarez, 34, matched the relaxed mood in a white polo shirt, navy jeans and a black cap.

The two looked relaxed and in good spirits as they exited the supermarket and headed towards a waiting car. They were later understood to have travelled on to Florida, where Grande spent the Fourth of July at her parents' home with Alvarez present.

Images from the grocery trip circulated quickly across social media and fan accounts, where the tone ranged from giddy excitement to careful side-eye. One fan wrote: 'I'm so down for this!! He's going to heal the old Ari.' Another user asked, with the kind of bluntness you only see online: 'Are we sure he is still an ex?' A third simply pleaded: 'Get back with him Ari.'

IBTimes UK cannot independently verify where or when all of the social media images were taken, so everything should be taken with a grain of salt. Still, the fan reaction itself is very real, and fairly loud.

Lyric Change Sends Fans Into Overdrive

The weekend reunion did not arrive in a vacuum. In late June, during Grande's show at The Moody Center in Austin, Texas, she quietly edited the lyrics to Thank U, Next, the track that famously namechecks Ricky Alvarez.

Instead of the original line, 'Wrote some songs about Ricky, now I listen and laugh,' she sang, 'Now they still kinda slap,' She also appeared to adjust another lyric to 'I know he still got my back,' a warmer framing of their history that fans picked up on almost instantly.

Footage from the concert, shared widely on TikTok, shows Grande visibly emotional on stage, days after news of her split from Slater became public. According to reports, Alvarez had a prime spot in the VIP section for her birthday show on 26 June and was also seen attending a performance two days earlier. Furthermore, the former couple had been 'grabbing lunch together' in Texas and had been 'hanging out recently,' language that inevitably sets social media on fire.

After Thank U, Next wrapped in Austin, a moment that fans seized on as symbolically loaded played out offstage. A source said that Alvarez was seen shaking hands with Grande's father, an interaction also captured on TikTok and replayed thousands of times. For a fandom that combs through everything for meaning, that is the sort of stuff that keeps theories humming for weeks.

Old Flames, New Timing

If this all feels slightly familiar, that is because it is. Back in 2018, two years after their original split, Ariana Grande and Ricky Alvarez triggered similar speculation when they engaged in a flirty-looking exchange on Instagram. Grande ultimately had to step in and clarify the situation, telling fans: 'We're friends, everyone take a big ol breather.' That was then. The difference now is the timing.

Grande's personal life has been under a harsher spotlight since it emerged that she and Ethan Slater, her Wicked co-star, had quietly parted ways earlier this year after nearly three years together. At the time, it was reported that the separation was amicable and that they remained on good terms.

Their relationship had been controversial from the start. Grande, 32 at the time, separated from her husband Dalton Gomez in 2023 after almost three years of marriage. Around the same period, Slater was going through a messy divorce from his wife of five years, Lilly Jay, with whom he shares a young son, Ezra. Rumours swirled that Grande and Slater's romance began on the Wicked set while he was still married, something sources close to Grande have pushed back on, insisting the couple had already been separated for two months before things became romantic.

Lilly Jay, speaking previously about the situation, gave her own pointed verdict, saying: 'Ariana's the story really. Not a girl's girl.' It is the sort of comment that lingers in the background when fans see Grande now spending time with a man widely viewed as a 'safe' ex.

Fans Read Between The Lines As Tour Rolls On

Professionally, Grande is handling all of this while performing night after night on The Eternal Sunshine Tour. It can be recalled that at one recent show she broke down in tears on stage, a moment fans linked to the strain of beginning a major global tour in the same week her latest split was confirmed.

So when fans see Ariana Grande and Ricky Alvarez together, they are not just seeing two exes grabbing groceries. They are reading it as a story about comfort, about circling back to someone who knew you before the chaos. Whether that story is accurate or not is another matter.

So far, neither Grande nor Alvarez has publicly commented on the nature of their relationship, and there has been no official statement from Grande's representatives. Without that, the most that can be said with certainty is that the pair are on notably good terms again, they are spending time together in public, and Grande has rewritten the line about him in one of her most famous songs to something far kinder.

The rest, for now, lives in the space where celebrity gossip always does, between what fans want to be true and what might actually be happening just out of frame.