Ethan Plath said he has been struggling with depression since his divorce, opening up about the breakup and the way music has helped him say what he cannot otherwise put into words in the April 7 episode of Welcome to Plathville. The 27-year-old was shown during his weekly Friday night music session with friend Austin, where the two played guitar and swapped songs they were working on.
One of Plath’s new songs traced the image of walking a lonely road, and he said it came from a painful stretch in his life. “It’s kind of written from the place of pain, like somebody leaving everything, trying to start over,” he said, adding that the song’s character eventually learns that “you can’t just run from your problems.” He told Austin the writing began after Olivia left, months after the couple publicly announced their split in October 2023 and jointly filed for divorce in February 2024 after five years of marriage.
Plath also said the experience had sharpened his view of depression itself. “Depression is a real thing, and I definitely struggled a lot with it,” he said, adding that “music helps a lot, but also, sometimes music is very painful too.” In the same episode, he was working on another song about his ex-girlfriend Teegan Nichols, after revealing in the season 8 premiere that they had broken up.
That breakup came with a hint that reconciliation was still possible. Asked whether he still had romantic feelings for Nichols, Plath said, “I guess I do,” and later said he missed doing things together and making memories with her. “The biggest thing really, is she truly was my best friend that I’d ever had,” he said.
The episode also put a finer point on why the communication around his relationships has been so difficult. Plath said his family never really learned to talk well with one another, saying, “I definitely think my mom and dad and all of my siblings, we just didn’t really learn to communicate very well.” He added, “I’m still learning, working on it,” and said he has “a lot on my heart and mind, but I can’t express it.”
That matters because Plath’s rocky relationship with Olivia Plath was already a central storyline on the TLC series, with the couple’s clashes over communication, politics, religion and how to raise children playing out on screen for years. The latest episode does not just revisit that history; it shows how much of Plath’s private life is still being processed in public, one song at a time. Music is the outlet he has, but the episode makes clear it is not a cure, only a way of getting through what he has not yet been able to say outright.
