Ana de Armas says media attention was ‘horrible’ following her break-up with Ben Affleck

Ana de Armas has a big year ahead of her. Her new film “The Gray Man” is premiering in a few weeks‘ time, and “Blonde”, where she plays Marilyn Monroe in one of the most discussed casting decisions in recent memory, is premiering in the fall.

In a cover story with Elle Magazine, de Armas discussed it all, including her short but memorable relationship with Ben Affleck.

De Armas and Affleck met while on the set of “Deep Water,” an erotic thriller that was released in March of this year. The two then dated for about a year and spent most of their time quarantined in LA, becoming the subject of fascination for the media. De Armas doesn’t think back warmly of the experience. “Horrible,” she called it. “Yeah, which is good. That’s one of the reasons why I left L.A.”

De Armas didn’t go into details about the breakup, but she did discuss how stressful it was to be under the public spotlight for so long and how different it felt to see friends going through that and to then experience that herself. “Going through it [myself] confirmed my thoughts about, ‘This is not the place for me to be,’” she said. “It became a little bit too much. There’s no escape. There’s no way out.” She says that living in Los Angeles gave her the feeling of “something that you don’t have, something missing. It’s a city that keeps you anxious.”

De Armas now lives in New York with her boyfriend Paul Boukadakis, a Tinder executive. While the two have been photographed together, their relationship has much less media coverage than her previous one, with the city being a place that affords her more privacy. De Armas says she loves living in New York, finding it closer to Cuba, where some of her family lives, and Spain, where she lived before she moved to the United States. Still, she misses Europe sometimes.

Ana de Armas has many exciting projects in the future and is building one of the most promising careers in Hollywood, opening doors for Latinos and showing off her versatility in dramatic and action packed roles. Her upcoming films include “Ghosted” alongside Chris Evans and “Ballerina,” an action spin off of the “John Wick” franchise.