In case you missed it, Ariana Grande and SNL star Pete Davidson have basically had the wildest relationship of 2018. What with getting engaged after only a month together, a handful of TMI television interviews and Pete’s tattoo of Ariana’s pet pig, it’s been quite the whirlwind romance. Sadly, it’s now being reported that the duo have called off their engagement, but if you can’t wrap your head around then entire roller-coaster relationship, let us guide you through a timeline of their relationship, which actually started – at least in some way – longer ago than you might think.
September 2014: Ariana appears as the musical guest on SNL. Pete, who has just joined the cast, makes his debut on the very same show. No confirmation on if they actually met on this occasion, but it’s not unlikely.
March 2016: Ariana returns to SNL, this time to serve as guest host. At the time, she’s still in a relationship with fellow musician Mac Miller, while Pete has just started dating writer and actor Cazzie David (Larry David’s daughter). The two apparently keep in touch.
May 10 2018: Over two years later, Ariana confirms she is no longer with Mac in an Instagram story, calling him “one of my best friends in the whole world and favourite people on the planet.” She added: “I respect and adore him endlessly and am grateful to have him in my life in any form, at all time, regardless of how our relationship changes or what the universe holds for each of us!” However, the two unfollow each other shortly after.
?brb, crying.@ArianaGrande explains her split with @MacMiller ? pic.twitter.com/phhasroEhc
— WiLD 94.9 (@Wild949) May 10, 2018
May 12: According to reports, Ariana and Pete hang out at together at the SNL afterparty. Ariana is said to spend all night with his mum.
May 16: Pete confirms he and Cazzie have broken up in an interview. “Very talented girl,” he says. “She’ll be great and she’ll be fine. Yeah, I think she’ll be okay.”
May 20: People reports Ariana and Pete are spotted hanging out together backstage at the Billboard Music Awards. The site quotes a source as saying: “After Ariana’s performance, they were backstage and he had his arm around her. They seemed very lovey-dovey. He was hanging out with her and her friends with his arm around her. She seemed quite smitten.”
May 21: That alleged smitten look is explained the next day when reports begin to circulate that the pair is dating. Those same reports are quick to point out, however, that the new relationship is “casual” and has “just started.”
May 23: So much for casual. Fans note the couple already have matching tattoos – small clouds on their fingers. Meanwhile, Ariana hits back at a fan who says she should have stayed with Mac. In a post on her Twitter page, she criticises the poster for “minimis[ing] female self-respect and self-worth by saying someone should stay in a toxic relationship because he wrote an album about them.” She continued to tell them to stop “shaming/blaming women for a man’s inability to keep his shit together” and that she hadn’t previously shared “how hard or scary it was was while it was happening, but it was.”
— Ariana Grande (@ArianaGrande) May 23, 2018
May 25: Two days later, Pete also posts a note on Instagram responding to fans. In it, he refutes people’s claims Ariana shouldn’t date him because he suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). “I been hearing a lot of “people with bpd can’t be in relationships” talk,” he wrote. “I just wanna let you know that’s not true.”
On the same day, the two begin really stepping up their public flirting, leaving comments on each other’s Insta posts for all to see.
May 29: Ariana shares a photo from Pete’s stand-up show in Los Angeles on her Insta story, along with the heart eyes emoji.
May 30: The next day, the pair finally make it Instagram official with a Harry Potter-themed photo. “The chamber of secrets has been opened…” Pete captions a photo of the two in Gryffindor (him) and Slytherin (her) robes. Ariana comments on the post: “u tryna slytherin (I’m deleting my account now).”
https://instagram.com/p/BjaMCELnB9G/?utm_source=ig_embed
June 2: Pete gets more tattoos for his new love, this time getting a ‘Dangerous Woman’ bunny mask behind his ear and Ariana’s initials on his thumb.
https://instagram.com/p/Bjh5DijnRvF/?utm_source=ig_embed
June 12: So much for casual, part two. Rumours begin to swirl that the couple are engaged after a month of dating. Ariana begins to like fans’ tweets about their apparent engagement, seemingly confirming it to be true.
June 15: Pete posts a photo on his Instagram that all but confirms their engagement. “U know what you’d dream it’d be like? it’s better than that,” he captioned the picture, which showed the pair’s hands, legs and feet. On Ariana’s ring finger? A fuck-off huge diamond ring.
https://instagram.com/p/BkDoSe4nbc2/?utm_source=ig_embed
June 19: They move into a $16 million, five-bedroom apartment in New York together and Ariana reveals there’s a song called ‘Pete’ on her new album. This will later cause an internet sensation.
June 20: Pete appears on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, where the duo’s engagement is confirmed beyond doubt. Asked by the host about it, the comedian replies: “It’s fucking lit, Jimmy. I feel like I won a contest.”
June 22: Ariana inadvertently popularises the concept of Big Dick Energy. Asked by a fan “how long ‘Pete’ is (meaning the song), the singer allegedly (if internet screen grabs are to be believed) replied: “like 10 inches? … oh fuck … I mean a lil over a minute.” Cue a ton of articles online about BDE, with Pete becoming an international emblem for the internet’s new favourite thing.
@ArianaGrande 10 INCHES SIS OMFG pic.twitter.com/8zYEQY1NZf
— Jaya ♡ (@JayaHampton) June 22, 2018
June 25: This time, it’s Ariana getting a tattoo dedicated to her partner. Fans notice the number 8418 on her foot, which Pete also has inked on his arm. The digits are the badge number of Pete’s dad, a firefighter who died in 9/11.
https://instagram.com/p/BkeU6HsnpyV/?utm_source=ig_embed
June 26: Ariana celebrates her 25th birthday with a series of gushing Insta posts from Pete. “Happy birthday to the most precious angel on earth! you’re my favourite person that ever existed 🙂 I love you sm,” reads one of them. Footage later appears on Ariane’s Insta story of the pair duetting to Evanescence’s ‘Bring Me To Life’ at her karaoke birthday party.
August 16: Ariana goes on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and and reveals she’d had a crush on Pete for several years before they started dating. “We met on SNL like two-three years ago…and we never exchanged numbers or anything, we weren’t even like friends for the longest time; but I had the biggest crush on him in the whole world the whole time, like, forever!” She went on to explain that she’d joked about marrying him, telling Fallon: “I left his writers room when we were writing skits for the show, and my tour manager was in the hallway, and I’m not a crushy person, I don’t have crushes on people I don’t know I’m not crushy; but I left and like jokingly said to my tour manager, I was like, “I’m going to marry him, hundred percent.” I was like “I’m literally marrying him!””
August 17: ‘Sweetener’ drops, and we can hear the song named after Pete, ‘Pete Davidson’, for the first time.
August 27: Pete and Ariana head to the MTV VMA’s, and spend the whole show snogging.
September 18: Ariana gets a pig, she names it Piggy Smallz, obviously. Pete gets a tattoo of said pig, obviously.
October 9: Images emerge that seemingly show that Pete has had his Dangerous Woman-inspired tattoo covered up by a large heart with a small A next to it, leading fans to question whether something is amiss in their relationship.
October 14: TMZ reports that Pete and Ariana have called off their engagement. Allegedly sources close to the pair have said that they split over the weekend, “with both parties acknowledging that it simply was not the right time for their relationship to take off. We’re told the two still have love for each other, but things are over romantically.”