Love is a many-splendored thing, especially when you’re gawking at it from the outside. In this column, we’ll be examining the celebrity couples (or, occasionally, friendship pairs) that give us hope for our own romantic futures and trying to learn what we can from their well-documented bonds.
It feels weird to cheer on a relationship between Ben Affleck and literally anyone who’s not Jennifer Lopez, but since she’s currently busy having a Nancy Meyers summer in the Hamptons and hanging out with fellow Affleck ex Jennifer Garner, I feel like it’s okay to briefly turn my attention to what a very faux-hawked, Red Hot Chili Peppers–tee-wearing, motorcycle-riding (or, in other words, “divorced”) Affleck has been up to. Specifically, I have a lot of questions about his rumored relationship with Kick Kennedy, the daughter of former 2024 presidential candidate and current Trump supporter Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
I should probably start by saying that there is no official documentation of this alleged romance; sure, anonymous sources told People it was on last week, but even they seemed confused. (To quote one of said sources: “I’m not sure what’s happening”, which is a very apt statement about the follies of famous-person relationships as well as a pretty good motto for life in general that I may or may not steal.) And now, Affleck’s rep is vigorously denying that his client is dating Kennedy, telling People on Tuesday: “There is no truth to any of it. I don’t know if they even know each other.” Fair enough! I mean, are you even in a celeb-for-celeb relationship if someone isn’t denying it?
I’m not accusing Affleck’s rep of lying, per se—after all, once we’ve lost faith in our A-list celebrity press reps, where are we as a society?—but I also do kind of believe that Affleck would be goony enough to romance a very visible young woman (a Kennedy, no less!) at the Polo Lounge in the aftermath of his seemingly rough split from J.Lo, and then find himself in the unenviable position of having to dodge the rebound allegations in the press. It does appear that these two crazy maybe-but-probably-not-lovebirds have a past, however; another anonymous source told Page Six that Affleck and Kennedy have known each other since the halcyon pre-COVID days of 2020, noting: “When Ben started seeing [former girlfriend Ana de Armas] in 2020 and chose to quarantine with her during COVID, Kick was less than thrilled.”
It’s wild to imagine an alternate version of celebrity-relationship history where Affleck and de Armas never fell in love or picked up masked Dunkin’ during quarantine or made that one extremely mid movie together, but then again, if Affleck and Kennedy really had made a go of it four years ago, would he have finally married J.Lo? Or would Affleck be a legitimate part of one of America’s oldest political dynasties right now? Hard to say, but for now, I’ll content myself with reading all the scandalized gossip about how Affleck and Kennedy definitely aren’t together (which, again, kind of makes me think…they are).
