Ariana Grande and Ex Ricky Alvarez Team Up for Fourth of July Whole Foods Run

Fresh groceries and fresh starts—or maybe just a fresh take on staying friends with your ex.

Ariana Grande and Ricky Alvarez spent Fourth of July Saturday hitting up Whole Foods in Florida before heading to her parents’house for the holiday celebration. The pair loaded up on groceries together in what’s becoming a regular sighting since Grande split from Ethan Slater months ago (though the breakup didn’t become public until June). It’s the kind of post-relationship dynamic that makes people do a double-take: exes, grocery aisles, and Independence Day, all rolled into one.

The holiday hang wasn’t a total surprise, given that Alvarez has been showing up in Grande’s orbit consistently over the past few weeks. He attended her sold-out“Eternal Sunshine Tour”shows in Sunrise, Florida—the same venue run she’d just wrapped before the Fourth of July grocery run—and he was spotted at her Austin, Texas concert too. That’s when things got particularly interesting: Grande actually changed the“thank u, next”lyric about him from“now I listen and laugh”to“he’s still got my back.”That’s not the kind of mic-drop moment you throw out for someone you’re trying to forget.

Sources close to the situation have been clear that there’s nothing romantic happening here—they’re simply longtime friends who’ve managed to keep that connection intact even after their romantic chapter closed. In celebrity terms, that’s actually pretty refreshing. No messy feuds, no awkward avoidance, just two people who genuinely seem to care about each other enough to show up, literally and figuratively.

What makes this story quietly interesting isn’t the gossip angle—it’s what it says about how some relationships can evolve. Not every breakup has to end in drama or silence. Sometimes exes really do stay friends, grocery shopping and holiday celebrations and all.