Who Is Ricky Álvarez? Ariana Grande's Boyfriend and Old Flame
Ricky Álvarez is Ariana Grande's boyfriend, ten years after they first dated. His age, his job, how they met and how they found their way back.
Ariana Grande and Ricky Álvarez made their red carpet debut as a couple on 11 November, at the New York City premiere of her film Focker-In-Law, InStyle reported. If the name rings a bell, it should: he's the Ricky from "Thank U, Next", her former backup dancer and her boyfriend from 2015 to 2016. Ten years later, they're back together. Here's everything we know about him.
Who is Ricky Álvarez?
Richard "Ricky" Álvarez is a dancer and choreographer from San Diego, California, according to LBC. He worked with Ariana from 2014, dancing behind her in live performances of "Problem" and "Santa Tell Me", and he had a sequence alongside her in the video for "Be My Baby".
He has since moved behind the camera. Several outlets describe him as a dancer and photographer, and Capital FM reports that he has worked with brands including Vogue, SKIMS and Tommy Jeans, and designed the cover art for Ariana's song "Imagine". On Instagram, where he posts as @rickyrozay, his feed is mostly his own photography.
How old is Ricky Álvarez?
He's 35. Capital FM gives his birthday as 13 July 1991. Ariana was born on 26 June 1993 and is 33, so there are about two years between them.
His birthday has already become part of their story: on 13 July this year, at her Eternal Sunshine Tour show at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, she changed her "Thank U, Next" lyric about him to "we always find our way back".
How did Ariana Grande and Ricky Álvarez meet?
Through work. He was one of the backup dancers when she premiered "Problem" at the Radio Disney Music Awards in April 2014, as Elite Daily and Capital FM report, and he then joined her Honeymoon Tour.
The romance became public in 2015. In June, she kissed him on stage at a Pride concert in New York, and over the Fourth of July weekend they were caught on video kissing in a doughnut shop in Los Angeles. That clip became one of her early controversies, because in it she also licked a doughnut and said "I hate America".
Many fans believe her song "Moonlight", from the album Dangerous Woman, is about him. "That's what Ricky called her one night. I think it was after their first kiss," singer-songwriter Victoria Monét said in 2016, as quoted by IBTimes UK. "He waited to kiss her for a long time, and she was really impressed."
Ariana kept the relationship mostly private. "We're happy," she told Billboard in May 2016. "I'm a very happy girl. I have a healthy life right now, and I think that's all anyone cares to know. The end."
Why did Ariana Grande and Ricky Álvarez break up?
They split in July 2016, after about a year together. Neither has ever explained the breakup publicly. At the time, a source said only that they had "found it difficult to make it work", that there was no cheating involved and that they stayed friends, as Elite Daily recalls.
Is he the Ricky in "Thank U, Next"?
Yes. In her 2018 hit, Ariana ran through her famous exes, and his line was "Wrote some songs about Ricky / Now I listen and laugh". He played along, posting a video of himself looking disappointed as he listened to it. Ariana then said on her Instagram Story that the lyric was meant "lovingly", and jokingly apologised for giving him "the worst line", according to Fox News.
When fans read too much into a comment she left on one of his posts that December, she shut it down: "We're friends everyone take a big ol breather," she replied, as reported by Us Weekly.
When did they get back together?
In the summer of 2026, after Ariana's split from her Wicked co-star Ethan Slater, which E! News reports ended for good in June after three years together.
The clues came from the stage. On her Eternal Sunshine Tour, she kept rewriting his line in "Thank U, Next":
- 24 June, Austin: the songs she wrote about Ricky "still kinda slap", according to most reports (E! News heard "really slap"). The day before, the two had been seen at a group lunch at De Nada Cantina in Austin.
- 26 June, Austin: on her 33rd birthday, with him watching from the crowd, it became "I know he still got my back".
- 13 July, Brooklyn: on his birthday, "We always find our way back".
In between, People reported that he had spent the Fourth of July weekend with Ariana and her family in Florida. On 14 July a source told People that they were dating again but "taking things very slowly", adding that "Ariana has always considered Ricky a friend" and that she was "happy to have him back in her life".
When did they go Instagram official?
Ariana soft-launched him on 27 July, with a clip of the two of them clinking olives in a post captioned "petal season continued", just before the release of her eighth album, Petal.
The real confirmation came on 12 August. In a carousel of photos of herself, her dogs and her friends, she included two pictures with Ricky and tagged him in both: a mirror selfie in matching white tops, with his arm around her, and a blurry upside-down shot of her hugging him. He reshared them on his own Instagram Stories.
Are Ariana Grande and Ricky Álvarez engaged?
No. Neither of them has announced an engagement or wedding plans. The rumours come from the last night of the Eternal Sunshine Tour, at London's O2 Arena on 1 September. At the final show of the 41-date tour, she changed his line one last time, singing "I'm tryna make him my last", as Hola reported. The crowd cheered, her dancers joined in, and fans started asking about a wedding.
As Hola itself put it, the lyric is "not an engagement announcement". JoJo Siwa's fans have asked the same question about her boyfriend Chris Hughes.
Are they still together?
Yes. On 11 November, five months after rekindling their romance, they attended the New York premiere of Focker-In-Law together, their first red carpet appearance as a couple, InStyle reported. She wore a vintage Badgley Mischka gown, and he wore a black blazer over a white shirt and jeans.
A week earlier, on 2 November, Ariana posted a photo dump that featured Ricky several times, including two PDA pictures, and showed off a new bob haircut ahead of the press tour for Focker-In-Law, the film in which she plays Olivia Jones, out on 25 November, according to Just Jared.
What is Ricky Álvarez's net worth?
There's no reliable figure. He has earned from dancing, choreography and photography work for big brands, but no credible source has published his net worth, so any number you see online is a guess.
