Ariana Grande Sets the Record Straight on Those Ricky Alvarez Romance Rumors

The "Thank U, Next" singer reveals if she's back together with her ex

By Elyse Dupre Dec 11, 2018 1:44 PMTags
Ricky Alvarez, Ariana GrandeJohn Shearer/Getty Images for Kitty Purry, Inc.

Are Ariana Grande and Ricky Alvarez back together? Not so fast.

The exes sparked romance rumors on Monday after the 25-year-old singer commented on an Instagram photo of her former beau. The picture showed the dancer donning a mustard-colored sweater on the streets of Brooklyn, New York. He captioned the photo, "Ready for it."

Grande was clearly a fan of the snapshot and commented, "These colors are sick." These four little words sparked a social media frenzy with many followers wondering if Grande and Alvarez had reunited.

"Ready for Rickiana?" wrote one social media user.

"[What] about you and Ariana????" commented another. "We all want to know."

The Grammy nominee quickly shot down any speculation. 

"We're friends everyone take a big ol breather," she replied to the latter commenter.

Grande and Alvarez were first romantically linked in the summer of 2015. They then dated for about a year before calling it quits in the summer of 2016.

read
Ariana Grande on Her Public Romances: "I Make Mistakes, and I Learn From Them"

The "God Is a Woman" star actually gave her former backup dancer a shout-out in her recent hit "Thank U, Next." 

"Wrote some songs about Ricky. Now I listen and laugh," she croons in the chart-topper.

Her exes Pete Davidson, Big Sean and the late Mac Miller are also mentioned in the song. However, it looks like the only relationship Grande is focused on right now is the one she has with herself.

"I look forward to hopefully learning to give some of the love and forgiveness that I have given away so frivolously and easily to men in the past to myself this year," she said at Billboard's 2018 Women in Music Awards.