All About Ana De Armas’ Boyfriend, Tinder Exec Paul Boukadakis

Ana de Armas is having a big year—she’s in Netflix’s The Gray Man, which releases this week, and is also starring as Marilyn Monroe in Blonde, an iconic role if there ever was one. She’s also been dating a man named Paul Boukadakis for just over a year. Boukadakis is an executive at Tinder, though that’s not how he and the actress met. Here’s everything we know about their relationship so far.

How did de Armas and Boukadakis meet?

In an interview with ELLE, de Armas talked a bit about her romantic relationships, past and present. She and Boukadakis were introduced by a mutual friend during the pandemic, which meant they enjoyed some dates at home over wine before going on more traditional outings. Page Six reported in June 2021 that they’d been together for a few months already, though they were not photographed together until September of that year. In December, they were photographed kissing, seeming to confirm their relationship.

It seems like they do try to keep their relationship private. De Armas had a rather high-profile relationship with actor Ben Affleck, but they split in January 2021. She had said the attention they received was “horrible.”

Where is Paul Boukadakis from?

Boukadakis lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma while he was growing up, according to a 2016 interview with Entrepreneur. Before landing at Tinder, he was the CEO and co-founder of a video-sharing app called Wheel, which was very focused on his midwestern roots.

“We have taken the concept and we have seeded it in the Midwest,” he said.“We went back to our roots. A lot of people on the East and West Coast get first glimpses of products. We wanted to take it back to the Heartland.”

Before his life in tech, he worked as a music video and commercial director for about 10 years. Wheel was eventually acquired by Tinder, which is when he became that company’s vice president of special initiatives.

De Armas grew up in Cuba, and had established an acting career before making her English-language acting debut in 2015’s Knock Knock. She went on to have significant parts in 2019’s Knives Out, and 2021’s No Time to Die.

How serious are Ana de Armas and Paul Boukadakis?

The couple currently live together in New York City, after the actress decided to leave Los Angeles. She had been in L.A. when lockdown began, but experienced harsh public scrutiny given her relationship with Affleck. It ended in her wanting to move to the east coast.

“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. … It’s always the feeling of something that you don’t have, something missing. It’s a city that keeps you anxious.”

Despite cohabitating, de Armas and Boukadakis have never hit the red carpet together or Instagram official. They’re not very active on social media to begin with. The Tinder exec has his Twitter set to private and no Instagram. De Armas rarely posts, though she did celebrate her 34th birthday on IG with some footage from the set of her upcoming film Ghosted.

De Armas told ELLE that Boukadakis was there in that moment, too, which is part of what made it so special.

“I had everybody with me: my man, my dogs, Chris [Evans, her co-star on The Gray Man] and the crew. I wasn’t home having a romantic dinner; I was on set with my people doing what I love and at the beach and having a shot of Fireball,” she said.“So that was my 34th birthday. And it is the happiest I’ve been.”

When were de Armas and Boukadakis last seen together?

The two have kept their relationship almost completely private over the last year. But the two were photographed arriving together at the Venice Film Festival in September 2022, where de Armas’ film Blonde appeared. The two were first photographed kissing in December 2021.