Ariana Grande goes Instagram official with Ricky Alvarez after weeks of hints

Dubai: Ariana Grande has gone Instagram official with the dancer Ricky Alvarez, ending a summer of increasingly unsubtle hints.

The confirmation came on Wednesday in a photo carousel, most of it pictures of herself, her dogs and her friends. Two of the images were of her and Alvarez, and she tagged him in both.

The caption was a single exclamation mark and a heart. Alvarez reshared both photos to his own Stories.

The lyric that gave it away

She has been telling everyone for six weeks, in public, on stage, one line at a time.

Thank U, Next, released in 2019, contains the line "Wrote some songs about Ricky, now I listen and laugh." Alvarez is the Ricky in question, from their original relationship.

On 24 June, at the Austin stop of her Eternal Sunshine tour, she changed it. "Wrote some songs about Ricky, and they still really slap."

Two nights later, on 26 June, she changed it again, with Alvarez watching from the crowd. "I know he still got my back."

Then on 13 July, a third revision. "We'll always find our way back."

How the summer went

Alvarez turned up at several tour dates in June, which is where the rumours began. The pair were photographed at lunch between concerts.

On 14 July, a source told People they were dating again but taking things very slowly, adding that Grande had always considered Alvarez a friend.

Page Six reported similar around the same time. "She isn't rushing back into the relationship," an insider said. "She has a lot on her plate at the moment and is still incredibly busy with her tour schedule, so they're taking things one step at a time."

The same source noted that Alvarez had remained close to Grande's family over the years, and that she valued it.

By 27 July she was tagging him in a Polaroid of herself that he had apparently taken. Which is the soft launch, in the modern grammar of these things, before Wednesday's hard one.

Who Ricky Alvarez is

A dancer, 35, who worked on Grande's Honeymoon Tour, which is how they met.

They dated for roughly a year, from July 2015 to July 2016. He appeared in the video for Thank U, Next in 2018, by which point they were friendly again.

That year, when fans read a comment she left on one of his posts as evidence of a reunion, she shut it down immediately. "We're friends everyone take a big ol breather," she replied.

Eight years later, the position has changed.

Where this leaves her year

The Eternal Sunshine tour, her album Petal released at the end of July, and the announcement that she is stepping away from public life once the touring ends.

She was previously with Ethan Slater, whom she met on the Wicked films, where she played Glinda and he played Boq. That relationship ended after around three years and was reported last month.

The tour finishes in London on 1 September.