Pete Davidson and Ariana Grande haven’t yet said the words “We’re engaged” to the public, but they’ve been making their intentions pretty clear to the world in other ways, this time with a revealing new photo on Instagram.
While the couple’s been mysterious about using labels, Davidson certainly seemed to welcome the speculation with an Instagram photo on Friday that showed off Grande’s left hand — massive ring and all. The comedian captioned the photo “u know what you’d dream it be like ? it’s better than that.” As for what “it” is, we can only guess: finding true love, posing for cute couple photos, captivating all of the Internet? An engagement?! Who’s to say, really?
Check the post out for yourself, below:
While this is the first photo the couple has shared of the ring, Grande’s been spotted out several times wearing it, including on a trip to Disneyland.
TMZ previously reported the ring was designed by jeweler Greg Yuna and cost $93,000. The 3.03 carat, pear-shaped stone set in platinum was supposedly designed specifically for Grande and took two weeks to make.
For her part, Grande has already taken to Twitter to seemingly confirm the engagement by responding to fans’ tweets with coy yet very happy messages. Just Friday morning, the singer tweeted, “i cant believe my life rn tbh if i’m dreaming pls knock me the f*ck back out.” Don’t worry Ariana, this is reality because we can’t even make this kind of celebrity relationship timeline up in our dreams.
At this point, it seems like Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson are engaged. Have they confirmed the news themselves? No, but Grande’s out here posting cloud emojis and “liking” tweets from fans congratulating her on the engagement, which is as close to a confirmation as we’re probably going to get. (Her reps, for what it’s worth, didn’t respond to our request for comment.) For someone who’s typically transparent with her fans, Grande’s being quite cryptic about this rumor.
One thing she can’t hide, though, is the giant, sparkly teardrop-shaped ring on her left finger. TMZ’s reporting that this piece of jewlery is, in fact, Grande’s engagement ring. The outlet values it at around $93,000 and says it took approximately two weeks to complete. Davidson reportedly commissioned New York City jeweler Greg Yuna to make the ring “especially” for Grande.
But is all that true? The report’s coming from unnamed sources, so take it with a grain of salt. However, pictures don’t lie: Grande’s been wearing this ring—or a ring that looks just like it, at least—for days now. She was mostly recently spotted wearing it on Monday night (June 11) at Disneyland, mere hours after news broke of her and Davidson’s engagement. The Daily Mail has the pics of that.
You can also clearly see the rock in selfies Grande took with fans. It’s honestly bigger than Space Mountain.
And its presence on Grande’s finger dates back even further. Below, check out a photo of Grande performing at Wango Tango on June 2, the ring in question fully in sight.
PHOTO: Getty Images
Here she is posing with a fan at the same show. See what’s visible at the bottom of this pic? Just, ya know, a maybe-engagement ring worth more than my entire life.
PHOTO: Getty Images
Think about this for a second. Let’s say this is actually Grande’s engagement ring. If June 2 is the first time she was spotted wearing it, that would mean she and Davidson got engaged just three days after they made their relationship Instagram official on May 30. “The chamber of secrets has been opened …,” Davidson captioned the photo, below, which many took as a confirmation he and Grande were together.
Three days, people. Three days from, “We’re dating” to “We’re engaged!” That’s either a short or long amount of time, depending on how you look at it. On the one hand, I have dishes in my sink that are three days old. You’ve probably had three day-long Netflix binges where you virtually accomplished nothing.
But on the other hand: In three days, Ariel from The Little Mermaid turned into a human, made Prince Eric fall in love with her, and defeated a sea witch. A lot can happen in three days—or a little. So Grande and Davidson deciding to tie the knot in that span of time isn’t totally a leap.
Grande’s fans can’t get enough of this theory. Below, just a few of their reactions:
Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson’s engagement—excuse me, reported engagement—is all I can think about right now. The two haven’t confirmed the news directly, nor did their reps respond to our request for comment, but Grande’s recent string of tweets certainly implies something’s going on.
Is that something an engagement? Maybe. Anything goes in 2018—including two celebrities getting engaged after dating for just a few weeks. Apparently, these two are just that into each other. (If you didn’t pick up on that Ariana bop reference, then I’m sorry. “Into You” deserved the world.)
All we really know about Grande and Davidson’s relationship comes from social media and news reports—both of which point to them getting together in early May. From then on, it’s been a sea of emojis, social media comments, backstage dates, and even (maybe) an engagement. Below, a timeline of their whirlwind romance.
March 2016: Grande and Davidson meet on the set of Saturday Night Live. At the time, he was dating Larry David’s daughter Cazzie David. This was the episode where Grande did her spot-on impression of Jennifer Lawrence that was my religion for approximately two weeks.
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September 2016 Grande reveals—via Instagram, naturally—that she’s dating rapper Mac Miller.
May 9, 2018: Fast-forward two years later: News breaks that Grande and Miller have split. She confirms the news herself on Instagram Stories: “I can’t wait to know and support you forever and I’m so proud of you,” she wrote.
May 12: Grande attends a Saturday Night Live after-party and is photographed holding what’s seems to be Davidson’s phone case. That, or she got the same case for her own phone. Both scenarios are suspect.
May 16: A few days later, Davidson reveals that he and David split up. “Very talented girl, she’ll be great and she’ll be fine,” he said on Complex’s show Open Late With Peter Rosenberg
May 17: Davidson posts a photo to Instagram with a cloud tattoo on his middle finger. The aforementioned phone case Grande was seen holding days before is cloud-shaped. Also, on May 14, Grande posted a cloud emoji caption to Instagram. Coincidence? I think not.
May 21: Us Weekly reports that Grande and Davidson are “casually dating.” This came off the heels of the 2018 Billboard Music Awards, where, according to People‘s sources, the two were acting “lovey-dovey.” “After Ariana’s performance, they were backstage and he had his arm around her,” one onlooker told the magazine. “They seemed very lovey-dovey. He was hanging out with her and her friends with his arm around her. She seemed quite smitten.”
May 24: Davidson and Grande ramp up their Instagram flirtation. Emojis, inside jokes, and lots of “HAHAHAHAs” are involved.
May 25: Davidson hits back at trolls on the Internet who said that Grande shouldn’t date him because he has borderline personality disorder (BPD). “Just because someone has a mental illness does not mean they can’t be happy and in a relationship. It also doesn’t mean that person makes the relationship toxic,” he wrote on his Notes app, which he posted to Instagram Story. “I just think it’s fucked up to stigmatize people as crazy and say that they are unable to do stuff that anyone can do. It’s not their fault and it’s the wrong way for people to look at things.”
PHOTO: INSTAGRAM
PHOTO: INSTAGRAM
May 30: Several fans took this photo Davidson posted of himself and Grande in Hogwarts attire as confirmation of their relationship. “The chamber of secrets has been opened,” he wrote.
June 3: Davidson debuts two new tattoos that appear to be tributes to Grande. The first is of her iconic Dangerous Woman bunny ears. The second is a silo of the initials “AG.” Subtle.
June 4: Davidson goes to support Grande at Wango Tango. He raves about her performance on Instagram Story.
June 9: The two now start posting photos of each other more frequently. Davidson uploaded a snap of them almost kissing at Kanye West and Kid Cudi’s Kids See Ghosts album listening party. In one pic, Grande jokes that her Instagram page is now a “Pete Davidson update” account.
June 11: Reports surface that Grande and Davidson are engaged. Grande appears to confirm via a series of cryptic tweets, likes, and replies. Fans lose their minds.
Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson are reportedly engaged, according to both People magazine and Us Weekly. The couple began dating in May.
This news hasn’t been confirmed by either Grande or Davidson—we reached out for comment—but sources tell People that it’s a recent development. “They’re just two people who found love quickly and make each other happy all the time,” a source reportedly close to the couple told the magazine. “They both started talking about it this past weekend. It’s nothing they’ve been hiding.”
Though the proposal came early in their relationship, you can expect a long engagement. “They are a perfect fit. They are not rushing to get married,”an “insider” told Us Weekly. “Their friends are really excited and supportive.” Another source told Us Weekly that Grande and Davidson were apparently “telling people that they’re engaged” at Robert Pattinson’s birthday party on June 9.
Again, it’s important to reiterate that all of this is coming from sources—not the couple or their representatives—but if social media’s any indication, Davidson and Grande are smitten with each other. The two frequently post photos of each other, both to Instagram and Instagram Stories. Grande just uploaded this photo, below, of the two goofing off:
On May 30, roughly two weeks after they started dating, Davidson uploaded this pic of him and Grande and captioned it, “The chamber of secrets has been opened…”
Grande’s fourth studio album, Sweetener, is due out some time this summer. Her single “No Tears Left to Cry” dropped on April 20. Davidson, meanwhile, is a regular on Saturday Night Live.
Shortly after this news broke, Grande tweeted a series of see-no-evil emojis and the phrase, “i love u sm ok bye.”
If you’re not following Ariana Grande’s every move, your mental picture of her probably includes a half-up pony or high, swinging one, liner that makes her already-big eyes look huge, and if you’re clicking through her stories on social media, more often than not an animal-face filter. It’s fun, and it’s her thing, and that’s respectable.
But on the cover of British Vogue‘s July’s issue, Grande’s done a 180. Replacing her signature vibe is long, blond hair—wore down—and natural makeup that lets her freckles pop through. It’s the kind of raw, stripped-down beauty look that’s come to signify women reclaiming their identities in the pop music world.
By now, it’s a familiar routine. Just look at the stack of newsworthy popstar beauty moments from last year, and you’ll see stars swapping their highly-styled, glamorous images for beauty looks that really do seem like they could’ve woken up like that. The list is long: Selena Gomez, Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga, Christina Aguilera, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, and Ke$ha have all embraced this move to a more pared-down look recently. It’s like a visual acknowledgement that these women no longer have to spend thousands of dollars to look larger than life. They can present themselves as themselves, and still be the pop powerhouses ruling the industry.
Of course, it’s hard to say whether anyone’s really wearing makeup or not on magazine covers, and how much of the decision came from Grande’s camp or Vogue‘s. But from the looks of it, Grande’s wearing at most some blush, lipstick, face makeup that lets her freckles shine through, and a gorgeous color of blond in her hair. Even outside of the pop music world, it’s what people are feeling; just the word “freckles” calls to mind Meghan Markle and her nearly barefaced walk down the aisle.
As ever with celebrities, it’s hard to say what inspired Grande’s switch from her old look to this one—or whether this will look will even extended beyond her cover. But we do know that this year has been a big one for her. Especially in the wake of the Manchester bombing, she tells Vogue that it’s been difficult to express how deeply she was affected.
“It’s hard to talk about because so many people have suffered such severe, tremendous loss. But, yeah, it’s a real thing,” she says. “I know those families and my fans, and everyone there experienced a tremendous amount of it as well. Time is the biggest thing. I feel like I shouldn’t even be talking about my own experience—like I shouldn’t even say anything. I don’t think I’ll ever know how to talk about it and not cry.” As the saying goes, a picture speaks louder than words. So maybe this is Grande letting us in; looking strong but delicate, young but wise, and wholly herself.
Former Olympic swimmer Ariana Kukors Smith filed a civil lawsuit Monday in California against USA Swimming, the governing body of the sport, alleging that they covered up abuse she suffered at the hands of coach Sean Hutchison, the Associated Press reports.
Kukors Smith, who competed in the 2012 Olympics, first went public in February, alleging that Hutchison began abusing her when she was just 16 years old. According to CNN, she told Department of Homeland Security investigators that the abuse began in 2005 and that her former coach took thousands of sexually explicit photographs of her when she was a minor.
“I never thought I would share my story because I was able to leave a horrible monster and build a life I could have never imagined for myself,” she said in a statement at the time. “But in time, I’ve realized that stories like my own are too important to go unwritten.”
Hutchison has denied the allegations and said that the two later had a consensual relationship. In February, he released a statement through his attorney that stated, “I absolutely deny having any sexual or romantic relationship with her before she was old enough to legally make those decisions for herself. Prior to that time, I did nothing to ‘groom’ her.”
According to the AP, USA Swimming previously hired a private investigator to look into rumors of a relationship between the two in 2010, when Kukors Smith was 21. It closed the investigation without finding any misconduct.
In the new lawsuit, USA Swimming officials are accused of knowing about allegations of Hutchison having inappropriate relationships with underage swimmers, including Kukors Smith, who was 16 in 2005. It also alleges that they manipulated a background screening system to shield coaches accused of abuse. Also included in the lawsuit is former Olympic coach Mark Schubert in a mention that he failed to report “a reasonable suspicion of child abuse or endangerment.”
“Those at USA Swimming need to change the culture of protecting predator coaches over young and vulnerable athletes such as myself,” Kukors Smith said.
