Julie Bowen and Sofia Vergara Don’t Set Each Other Up on Dates

Even though Julie Bowen and Sofia Vergara are good friends in real life, they aren’t quite ready to set each other up on dates.

“She knows better and I know better,” Bowen, 54, exclusively told Us Weekly while promoting her partnership with Hyundai. “She knows that I like the sort of odd ones, the quiet ones, the ones that don’t go out, you know, they’re not usually at the center of the party.”

Bowen noted that “anybody that dates” Vergara has to be “comfortable being so far out of the spotlight” that they “may as well be in the dark.”

“She is such a dynamo. She’s so fantastic,” Bowen gushed. “She’s so devoted to her family. … You go to her house, and there’s always a family member there. You go on a trip, you go anywhere, there’s always family. So if you want to date Sofia, you got to date the whole package.”

The Happy Gilmore actress shared that she loves Vergara’s family and thinks that Vergara is a “magical and wonderful” person.

“She’s truly the most generous, kind, funny person I’ve ever met. But I don’t know any dudes who are strong enough for that,” she added.

Vergara called it quits with ex-husband Joe Manganiello in 2023 after tying the knot in 2015. Bowen, for her part, was previously married to Scott Phillips from 2004 to 2018 — they share son Oliver and twins John and Gustav, born in 2007 and 2009, respectively.

While Bowen has dated some people casually since her divorce, she has yet to introduce a partner to her children.

“I have still never introduced them to anybody that I have dated … how many people have you been 100% confident about in your life?” Bowen shared with Us. “The minute you’re like, ‘I’m dating this person,’ the boys are like thinking about my mom doing sex stuff. They don’t want to think about that with married parents, right? That’s gross to people who aren’t married.”

Although Bowen doesn’t have a man in her life right now, she is obsessed with the novelist Akbar who is “very young” and “very married.”

“I’m in love with him. I am madly in love,” she gushed. “Have I ever met him? No. Will I meet him? Probably not. Is he too young for me, and married? Yes. It doesn’t matter. I fall madly in love with whoever I’m reading.”

Aside from staying busy with reading, Bowen is busy raising her three sons — and partnering up with Hyundai for Teen Driver Safety week to help empower parents and teens to feel confident when driving.

“Driving anxiety is real and I think it’s for both the kids and the parents,” she explained to Us. “And it seems to be when you least expect it, the kid, all of a sudden, is terrified to merge onto the highway. Yet they are, you know, they don’t seem to observe stop signs and like their music is really loud. So there’s this sort of overconfidence and then fear at the same time.”

With reporting by Amanda Williams