Only three weeks into 2025 and, for a minute at least, it looked like we had our first surprise celebrity couple of the year. Racing driver Lewis Hamilton and Modern Family star Sofia Vergara were spotted out for ‘a two hour’ lunch with a group of friends and, as per usual, the internet has gone up in flames with theories.

The paparazzi got so close to the window of the restaurant they were eating in that they might as well have pulled up a chair. Hamilton and Vergara were then spotted smiling outside the restaurant, Hamilton in a furry bucket hat and Vergara in dark sunglasses, before getting in their respective cars. In optimistic internet speak, this was translated into them ‘looking smitten’.

It makes sense that this new friendship would pique interest as, given their respective career choices, it’s unlikely they were grabbing lunch to talk about work. Nor have they been known to hang out in the past. Unless, of course, Hamilton is looking to pivot into film or Vergara sees a future for herself at Formula 1.

However, a ‘source’ has since reminded us all not to believe everything we read online and told Us Weekly that the meet up was ‘merely a casual lunch with a big group of friends in a group setting’ and ‘by no means a date’.

Whatever it was, the outing has put a new prospective couple on our 2025 bingo card – even if they are just friends for now. Vergara has been largely single sine her divorce in July 2023 from her husband of seven years, Joe Manganiello.

‘We have made the difficult decision to divorce,’ they said in a joint statement at the time. ‘As two people that love and care for one another very much, we politely ask for respect of our privacy at this time as we navigate this new phase of our lives.’

According to a source at the time, the former couple were no longer on the same page when it came to their relationship. ‘She would rather go out with friends, and he would rather stay home, so they wouldn’t spend a lot of time together,’ the insider explained.

However, in January 2024 Vergara offered her own take on the separation. ‘I’m newly divorced from my second husband, who I was with for 10 years,’ she told the Spanish newspaper El Pais. ‘He wanted to have kids, and I didn’t want to be an old mom.’

Vergara already has a son, aged 33, from her first marriage to her childhood sweetheart, Joe Gonzalez. She was 18 when they got married and it lasted two years. ‘I feel it’s not fair to the baby,’ she continued. ‘I respect whoever does it, but that’s not for me anymore. I had a son at 19, who is now 32, and I’m ready to be a grandmother, not a mother.’

Manganiello, on the other hand, has already moved on and is dating the 35-year-old actress Caitlin O’Connor. They have spoken openly about their plans to have children in the near future.

It’s clear that whoever Vergara ends up with next will need to be on the same page as her when it comes to having more children. ‘If love comes along, he has to come with [his own] children. I’m almost in menopause,’ she added. ‘When my son becomes a dad, let him bring the baby to me for a while and then I’ll give it back to him and go on with my life.’ A respectable attitude, indeed.

As for Vergara’s post-divorce dating history, in October 2023 she was linked to the Beverly Hills-based orthopaedic surgeon, Justin Saliman, but the relationship did not last long. Last year, she told Us Weekly she was ‘kind of single’ at the moment. Most recently at the Golden Globes, Vergara told Access Hollywood she was manifesting ‘health, money, a boyfriend, or a lover, maybe’ in 2025.

Speaking of potential lovers, Hamilton is currently single having famously dated Nicole Scherzinger on and off for seven years before splitting in 2015. He has also been linked to Rihanna and Shakira.

While they might be compatible in that department, it doesn’t sound like Vergara and Hamilton would make a perfect match long term. In September 2024, Hamilton told The Sunday Times, ‘One day [I want kids]. I wouldn’t be able to do what I do to the level that I do it today with that. One of my best friends has just had a kid and I’m seeing how manic it is – and my nieces and nephew are a handful.’

‘There will be a time and a place for it, and I can’t wait for that part. But right now I have some work to do.’ Hamilton is still very much in the throes of his career, having won the 2024 British Grand Prix just last summer, so it doesn’t sound like he wants to start a family immediately, but he might once his career starts to slow down.

Meanwhile Vergara is full speed ahead. Last year, she played notorious drug lord Griselda Blanco in the hit Netflix series, and she is reportedly working on a pitch for a new Miami-based series with the Griselda creative team too.

Alas, perhaps it was just a friendly lunch after all.