Inside the life of actress and socialite Kick Kennedy: Is JFK’s great niece the woman to make Ben Affleck smile again after his split with J-Lo?

It’s a fact universally acknowledged {that a} single Hollywood star in possession of a luck have to be in need of a spouse.

And so it’s that – despite the fact that his second spouse Jennifer Lopez filed for divorce solely final month – Ben Affleck is reportedly being paired off with a brand new lady.

She is Kathleen Kennedy, universally often called Kick: a petite, sparky scion of the Kennedy dynasty who loves beer, boats, capturing pool, smoking and canine.

We’ll come to the hoo-ha over the precise nature of their relationship shortly – although, in deliciously Hollywood phrasing, well-placed sources inform me they’re ‘intimate however not romantic’ and have been seeing one another since June. Ben’s workforce, nonetheless, denies any suggestion they’re relationship.

However the reality is that Kick Kennedy, 36, would seem like completely suited to the function of pulling Affleck, 52, from the ­wreckage following the tip of his ‘without end’, second-time-around, fairytale romance with singer and actress J-Lo.

There’s the lustre of the Kennedy identify, impossibly enticing to somebody raised in Boston, corresponding to Affleck.

Her grandfather was Robert Kennedy, brother of President John F. Kennedy, each of whom had been shot by assassins. Her father, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, is a controversial determine in US politics who not too long ago appalled many of the Kennedy clan by endorsing Donald Trump in his bid for President.

There’s additionally been some humorous enterprise with a sawn-off whale head, extra of which later.

It is truthful to say that the ability, cash and affect of the ­Kennedys is dazzling, even to a recipient of two Oscars.

Would Ben Affleck wish to spend the summer time hanging out on the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport, ­Massachusetts? You wager he would. He would additionally most likely be the least fascinating particular person across the desk.

Then there’s Kick’s unhappy historical past of being surrounded by addicts. Her stepmother Mary took her personal life in 2012 after an extended wrestle with medication and drink. An inside designer and philanthropist, she was RFK Jr’s second spouse.

Kick additionally dated the banking millionaire Matthew Mellon, who died in 2018 of a coronary heart assault, aged 54, after experimenting with the hallucinogenic plant ayahuasca.

He had been struggling for years with an dependancy to opoids, ­latterly Oxycontin, and had been as a result of go to rehab. Kick described her time with him as ‘magic’ and was apparently broken-hearted by his sudden dying.

Affleck, after all, has his personal infamous struggles with sobriety, having been to rehab 3 times for alcohol dependancy, most not too long ago in 2018.

Kick most likely understands the addict’s wrestle to stay sober higher than many – presumably higher than J-Lo, who has by no means actually loved alcohol and whose life-style was at all times super-healthy.

After which there’s Kick’s fascinating place each inside and ­outdoors the celeb firmament. She’s not – but – been profitable sufficient at performing to be well-known, however she is a celeb of kinds due to her identify, and lots of of her mates are A-listers.

Certainly, her youthful brother Conor went out with Taylor Swift (who has a home throughout the road from the Kennedy compound).

She has had quite a lot of pretty minor performing roles, together with within the comic Larry David’s smash hit TV present Curb Your Enthusiasm, drama sequence The Newsroom, and comedian movie Instructor Of The Yr.

Socialite Kick additionally appeared as herself in a 2010 episode of Gossip Woman. She has expressed her ambitions to interrupt into movies.

As she mentioned almost ten years in the past: ‘I am not well-known. I am nonetheless simply making an attempt to make it, to be an artist, and comply with my goals. Hopefully at some point individuals will come to see me for one thing that does not must do with my final identify. For me, it is simply two various things. It is a job. That’s my life.’

She’s nonplussed when individuals ask what it is wish to be a Kennedy – saying that she would not know what it could be like to not be one.

‘I used to be born with a sticker – a reputation – that has made me completely uninterested within the fame issue of success,’ she as soon as mentioned.

‘I see all my actor mates actually going for it in that method as a result of it is such an enormous a part of the job, but it surely form of turns me off. I am terrified of it, or no less than . . . unamused.’

It seems that her path crossed with Affleck’s a while in the past. In accordance with the New York Put up’s Web page Six gossip column, the 2 of them had a fling in early 2020.

Reportedly, Kick and Ben had been hanging out till he fell for Ana de Armas, his film co-star within the thriller Deep Water.

‘Their friendship has been occurring for some time, even earlier than Ana,’ one Hollywood insider instructed Web page Six. ‘When Ben began seeing Ana in 2020 and selected to quarantine along with her throughout Covid, Kick was lower than thrilled.’

Ultimately, Ben and Ana broke up in January 2021. ‘Ben is now not relationship Ana,’ a supply instructed Folks journal on the time. ‘She broke it off.

‘Their relationship was difficult. Ana would not wish to be Los Angeles-based and Ben ­clearly has to since his youngsters [with ex-wife Jennifer Garner] dwell in Los Angeles.’

One other supply mentioned they had been at completely different factors of their lives and Affleck wished time to ‘work on himself’.

Then, in some unspecified time in the future this 12 months when his two-year marriage to J-Lo, 55, failed, the friendship with Kick was apparently rekindled.

In court docket papers, J-Lo dated their separation to April 26 and experiences counsel that Kick and Ben began hanging out, discreetly, in late spring following the break up.

In mid-Could, experiences emerged suggesting Affleck had moved out of the £60 million marital dwelling in Beverly Hills and was renting a property in Brentwood, near the place his former spouse Garner lives with their three kids.

On Could 31, Lopez introduced she was cancelling her summer time tour and inside a few weeks Ben and Kick had been noticed collectively on the Polo Lounge, ­Beverly Hills, wanting ‘very couply’. It is mentioned they’ve been seen collectively at different occasions, with an nameless article on the celeb gossip web site DeuxMoi claiming he was seen coming and going with an in a single day bag with Kick from an residence complicated ‘owned by an A-list buddy’ ‘since no less than June’.

Since then Affleck has purchased a house in Pacific Palisades, LA.

A number of shops in America have claimed that Affleck has been spending time with Kick. Nevertheless, Jen Allen, a spokes­particular person for the actor and ­filmmaker, mentioned: ‘There isn’t a fact to any of it. I do not know in the event that they even know one another.’

Kick’s representatives have mentioned nothing, and certainly is not going to. As somebody who has grown up within the ­Kennedy household, she could be very cautious of the media.

As she instructed City & Nation journal in 2012, studying tales in regards to the ­Kennedys was ‘form of like studying a cartoon strip and there is a character, but it surely’s not me. It is a story that is loosely associated to mine.’

However within the few interviews she has given, Kick paints herself as a free spirit who smokes and isn’t averse to utilizing the odd expletive.

Born to RFK Jr and his first spouse Emily Black in 1988, she has a eager curiosity in conservation and nature which she attributes to her ­controversial father.

She shared that when she was six, her father – as soon as a distinguished determine of America’s environmental motion – heard {that a} lifeless whale had washed up in Hyannisport.

RFK Jr, who was occupied with ­learning anatomy, minimize the lifeless whale’s head off with a chainsaw and strapped it to the roof of the household automobile. They then drove 5 hours to New York.

‘Each time we accelerated on the freeway, whale juice would pour into the home windows of the automobile, and it was the rankest factor on the planet,’ she mentioned.

‘All of us had plastic baggage over our heads with mouth holes minimize out.

‘Folks on the freeway had been giving us the finger, however that was regular day-to-day stuff for us.’

In addition to attending Stanford College, she made her society debut on the Crillon Ball for debutantes in Paris. 

Novelist Christopher Buckley, whose daughter has been mates with Kick since kindergarten, instructed {a magazine}: ‘Our Kick very a lot takes after her ­predecessor [great-aunt Kathleen]: energetic, humorous, fairly, vivid, and filled with mischief. If she will be able to handle the ­mischief, then the world can be her stage, and will probably be a grand leisure.’

That, no less than, appears assured.