Three people I used to care nothing about have taken over my damn life.
In early May, People announced the split of charming comedy couple Pete Davidson and Cazzie David, who had been happily dating for the past two years. Okay, fine. A little over a week later, Us Weekly came back at us with news that the Saturday Night Live star had begun "casually dating" Ariana Grande. Surprising, sure, but not as absolutely gob-smacking as the news of their reported engagement that broke earlier this week.
Usually, I'm content to let celebrities get up to whatever nupitals they please, but this one immediately set off alarm bells — and I wasn't the only one who heard them. Several other "truthers" began taking to social media to point out that the timeline we've been privy to does not add up.
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my official ariana grande and pete davidson timeline pic.twitter.com/hDdXMGIAOA
— nicole boyce (@nicolewboyce) June 12, 2018
I honestly wish Ariana & Pete well, look, love is a gamble life is a battlefield mazel. But DO NOT TELL ME that there isn't something amiss with this timeline https://t.co/E9HMkwX8Bi
— Margaret Eby (@margareteby) June 12, 2018
So here's the basic timeline. Us Weekly reported Grande and Mac Miller's split on May 10 and Davidson and David's split on May 16. Then, on May 21, news of Davidson and Grande's budding relationship surfaced. On June 9, they reportedly began telling people they were engaged.
Enter, the jeweler.
"Pete called me at the end of May and said 'Look, I'm getting a ring. This is what I want,'" Greg Yuna told E! News. "And I told him that I had the right ring for him. He didn't tell me who it was for but told me to keep it a secret. He didn't tell me anything about it."
According to Yuna, the ring took two weeks to make. According to E!, Grande was first seen wearing the ring on June 2. RECORD SCRATCH FREEZE FRAME.
This means the latest Davidson could have called Yuna about the ring is May 19, two days before the "casual" relationship was announced; two days after Us Weekly reported his split from David; a week after he and Grande were seen hanging out at the SNL after party. This relationship has moved fast, but even that is pushing it. The tattoos, the ring, the social media fawning: this feels less like the behavior of a brand new couple and more like the behavior of a couple who has finally been allowed to brag about their relationship.
And that just might be the case because, not unlike Westworld, we've been focusing on the wrong timeline. In fact, Grande and Davidson have possibly been dating for quite some time, the likelihood of which hinges on a set Davidson performed at my alma mater Kenyon College in Ohio on April 21 (that, just FYI, he "objectively bombed," according to The Kenyon Collegian).
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According to multiple sources who were in attendance, Davidson spoke on stage about his girlfriend at the time, and told the audience that they would probably get married. Those I spoke to had assumed this was about David, though they shared conflicting reports about whether or not he referenced her by name. But what if it was about Grande?
If Davidson did refer to David as the girlfriend he was probably going to marry, this marks the most recent time that we know they were still together, but also makes his sudden engagement to Grande even more confusing. BUT! If he didn't refer to his girlfriend by name because he was secretly dating Grande, then the rest of this timeline makes a lot more sense.
First and foremost, it means Davidson and Grande have been dating for much longer than we've been privy to. It means this May 3 Instagram from David was simply a confirmation that she and Davidson were still friends:
It means the sudden flux of photos and tattoos and social media flirting was just bottled up PDA that they could finally release. It means that May 19 (or then-abouts) call to the jeweler came after already declaring his intentions to marry Grande back in April. It means I finally understand what's happening.
But, I don't really. Because this is still something neither Davidson nor Grande have spoken about publicly, and it's something neither of their reps have returned my request for comment for. It's something I'm going to continue to think about every day until I'm given answers.
If you have them, please let me know.
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