Wow.
Joe Manganiello‘s new book is dropping some bombshells — including some shocking claims about ex-wife Sofia Vergara!
People magazine obtained some excerpts from his new memoir, Bloodlines, and in them the True Blood werewolf reveals the depths of a seven-year illness he started battling during his marriage to the Modern Family alum.
The two TV stars married in 2015 and enjoyed newlywed bliss until the reality of his decreasing vitality rocked both their worlds.
We first heard about his mysterious health battle when he teased his new book back in June, but now we’ve got an even bigger picture. If you’re queasy, sit down while you read this…
His symptoms, per People, started with “excruciating abdominal pain” — and it got so bad he couldn’t even walk with the pain. Fevers, rashes, rectal bleeding, and more issues soon began. His digestive track was ulcerating, and he was getting “sicker and sicker.” He even had to endure organ amputation and get an ostomy bag at one point.
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His weakening health wasn’t just taking a toll on his body. Sadly, he says it contributed to the downfall of his marriage to Sofia, writing their partnership had “become devoid of any emotionality whatsoever.”
The book reportedly claims things got so cold in their relationship Sofia “refused” to hug him, per People, no matter how much he “begged” her for one. Now, obviously, if someone doesn’t feel like giving another person a hug they shouldn’t have to, but he’s illustrating how strained things had become. “In sickness and in health” had clearly gone out the window!
Perhaps more shocking, though, is the claim she “ridiculed” him for his chihuahua Bubbles, a small dog he adopted for comfort when he became suicidal. He says his mental health had taken such a toll he had to give away his gun because he couldn’t stop the ideation. Bubbles saved him.
“I went from being the patient to the caretaker.”
Eventually, Joe and Sofia decided to publicly announce their split in 2023. A year later, a then 51-year-old Sofia gave El País her reason for the divorce:
“Well, I’m newly divorced from my second husband, who I was with for 10 years. My marriage broke up because my husband was younger; he wanted to have kids and I didn’t want to be an old mom. I feel it’s not fair to the baby. I respect whoever does it, but that’s not for me anymore.”
His new book, however, contradicts that. Saying “there were things said and printed about me that were false,” Joe claims HE was the one who let go of having children during his illness. They had tried rounds of IVF, hadn’t had any luck, so the next step would be getting an egg donor. But he says he thought about what would happen if he died, and he couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Sofia with a kid “who wasn’t biologically hers.”
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This tracks with what he told Men’s Journal back in 2024. At the time he wasn’t ready to go into detail about his illness, but he WAS ready to deny her version of events. He told the mag they “did try to have a family for the first year and a half,” but it just didn’t happen for them:
“And we had a huge conversation right out of the gate during the first month we dated. I said, ‘If you’re done with kids, then I understand. Just tell me, and I’ll know what this is, and that’s okay.’ But that wasn’t the case with her. And I swore to her that I would never leave if it didn’t work out. And I didn’t.”
So, no, children “wasn’t inevitably why everything ended,” he says. Instead, per his account, what really happened was that “two people grew apart, and sometimes that happens.”
As for his illness, to this day doctors still don’t have a diagnosis for it aside from it being some kind of autoimmune disease. In his book Joe writes about seeing a shaman who told him it was connected to generational trauma (his ancestors lost family in the Armenian genocide). He’s since been able to successfully reconnect his digestive track and is now symptom free.
“Whatever chains there were to the past suffering of my ancestors, they were completely broken. There’s not an ounce of fear in me about moving forward with my life.”
People consulted Dr. Dawn Beaulieu for her medical take. She hasn’t worked with Joe, but she does work in gastroenterology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She says “autoimmune diseases can go into remission,” and “from a medical standpoint, all we know is that he’s better.”
And thank goodness! What Joe went through — for years, mind you — sounds like absolute hell. We’re so glad he’s still here with us. And we know his new fiancé, Caitlin O’Connor, is too!
Wishing Joe, Caitlin, and Bubbles a life full of good health!
Bloodlines is out in bookstores on October 13. At this time, Sofia has not publicly commented on Joe’s claims.
Thoughts? Will you be checking his memoir out??
For resources on mental health, visit https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/find-help.
If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide, help is available. Consider contacting the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988, by calling, texting, or chatting, or go to 988lifeline.org.
[Image via Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen/The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon/YouTube]
