“Cruel and heartless”: Joe Manganiello alleges abuse and mockery from Sofía Vergara during his near-death illness
His new book details severe illness, emotional strain and why he says the story of their split was incomplete
Joe Manganiello is offering his most detailed account yet of the health crisis that dominated much of his marriage to Sofía Vergara , and he says the experience left emotional scars as well as physical ones.
In his upcoming memoir, Bloodlines, Manganiello alleges that Vergara ridiculed him over Bubbles, the five-pound dog he adopted in 2019 during an especially dark period.
“I had to give my gun away because I kept thinking about it, and then the dog came,” Manganiello said. “I went from being the patient to the caretaker.”
He also claims Vergara refused to hug him while he was seriously ill, even when he asked her to. Vergara has not publicly responded to those allegations.
Illness changed how he viewed fatherhood
Their divorce was previously framed by Vergara as a disagreement over children.
“My marriage broke up because my husband was younger, he wanted to have kids, and I didn’t want to be an old mom,” Vergara said in 2024. “I feel it’s not fair to the baby.”
Manganiello now says the situation was more complicated. He says the couple went through unsuccessful IVF attempts and later considered using an egg donor, but his worsening health ultimately changed his thinking.
Manganiello says he feared dying and leaving Vergara to raise a child who was not biologically hers. “There were things said and printed about me that were false,” he said, explaining why he wanted to address the issue in his book.
Seven years of illness changed everything
Manganiello says his symptoms began shortly after the couple married in 2015. He recalled severe abdominal pain, blistering rashes, headaches, fatigue and rectal bleeding as his condition worsened.
“I was getting sicker and sicker,” he said. Over the next seven years, Manganiello says he lost 60 pounds and underwent multiple colonoscopies.
Emergency surgery in 2016 removed part of his intestines, forcing him to rely on an ostomy bag. “It happened to me, and it’s the truth, and I have all the scars to prove it,” he said.
Manganiello says he is now symptom-free and off medication after later surgery reconnected his digestive tract. He is currently engaged to Caitlin O’Connor , and says the possibility of having children is once again something he can consider.
“If that’s meant for me,” Manganiello said. “For seven years I thought I was going to be dead the next week. The world has opened back up to me.”
Bloodlines is scheduled for release on October 13.
