Ariana Madix has been dating personal trainer Daniel Wai since early 2023, and their relationship has stayed visible even as they split time between Los Angeles and New York City. The pair met at a mutual friend’s wedding after Madix ended her nine-year relationship with Tom Sandoval.
That detail keeps showing up now because fans still want to know who Madix is dating and how serious it is. Wai is not a fleeting name in the background; he has appeared with her at Coachella, supported her Broadway debut in Chicago, and later joined her on a red carpet, making him a regular part of the public version of her life.
By May 2023, a source described Wai as someone who treated Madix well and said she was happy to be moving on to a new chapter with him. Around the same period, the couple were spotted showing PDA at Coachella, one of the first public signs that the relationship was more than a brief post-breakup rebound. Wai has spent more than a decade in the fitness industry, and in a 2024 TikTok he said he had helped more than 200 clients reach their goals over 15 years of training.
He also began speaking about Madix in ways that made the relationship easier to read from the outside. In December 2023, Wai posted an Instagram Reel after her Dancing With the Stars run, and when she made her Broadway debut in Chicago in January 2024, he turned up with a bouquet. Those moments fit a pattern: Wai has been open about cheering her on, while Madix has kept the relationship visible without turning it into a running commentary.
The long-distance part is the friction point that has never gone away. Madix continues to live in Los Angeles while Wai is based in New York City, so what works for them depends on travel, schedules and the willingness to keep showing up for each other from different coasts. He once described New York as his home city while explaining that he was doing consulting work there, which underscores how much of the relationship has had to be built around geography.
That arrangement has held through bigger moments, too. Madix and Wai made their official red carpet debut as a couple at the iHeart Radio Music Awards in March 2025, and they later appeared together at a Vulture event in May 2026 celebrating reality TV’s most influential stars. For now, the answer to who Ariana Madix’s boyfriend is remains Daniel Wai — and the more telling part is that the relationship has lasted long enough to move from a mutual friend’s wedding to awards shows without either coast giving way.
