It’s not like it wasn’t official before though, right? After several weeks of almost-daily photographs outside of his home as they’re sheltering-in-place together, Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas have been “official” for a while now. These days though, going “Instagram Official” is a whole other thing, both for civilians and celebrities.
Ana celebrated her 32nd birthday yesterday and Ben, who’s already an Instagram Boyfriend made it into the carousel – twice! (Third and seventh shots below)
We can see him…but we can also hear him. His voice pops up in this video:
Ana was also all over IG stories about her birthday, reposting a series of birthday messages. So now I’ve learned something new about Ana that I like very much: Ana de Armas loves her birthday, she’s a birthday whore. Takes one to know one. I too am a birthday whore. When you’re a birthday whore, everyone must know about your birthday, you will force your birthday onto others, they don’t have a choice.
Ben and Ana went away for her birthday, somewhere in the desert. And, presumably, he planned it, maybe as a surprise? Organised the balloons and the cake and the piñata, as much as can be done when, even for celebrities, there are limitations because of the pandemic. Still, he pulled off a whisk. Whisking someone off somewhere is never not romantic. And somehow they were able to leave undetected, because there have been no pap shots of them leaving, and you know the paps would have been on it had they known that Ben-Ana had left.
Now that they’re IG Official though, there are those who are leaning in even harder to the theory that this is a set-up, a fauxmance. I get it. Hollywood fixers and strategists many decades ago created the fauxmance – it’s a product of classic Hollywood and has become a favourite of gossip conspiracy theorists, myself included. But, for what it’s worth, I don’t think this is that. Not only because neither of them need it (for what?! Publicity? Publicity is for securing more work – Ana was already being offered everything before Ben came along – and/or for promoting a movie and Deep Waters, their movie together, is months away, if not longer, as you may have heard COVID-19 has f-cked with the entire industry and its release schedule) but also because neither one has anything to hide? In the past, a lot of the time, the fauxmances happened because the truth needed to be obscured in some way. That certainly doesn’t apply to Ben since, well, I don’t think we need to go over his public-facing ordeal the last few years and for Ana, if there’s some darkness she’s trying to conceal or that she’s worried will get out, would Ben Affleck be the person to fake something with if you’re trying to be wholesome? Ben-Ana might be thirsty but that doesn’t mean they’re not legit, you know?
