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Joe Manganiello is opening up about the devastating health battle he says changed his marriage to Sofia Vergara — and his account of their relationship is not exactly flattering.
Manganiello and Vergara got divorced in 2023 after seven years of marriage.
And he says she was anything but supportive while he was battling a mysterious autoimmune illness that nearly killed him.


Manganiello details the ordeal in his upcoming memoir, Bloodlines, revealing that his health began deteriorating shortly after he and Vergara married in 2015.
Over the next seven years, he says he lost 60 pounds, endured excruciating abdominal pain, and underwent numerous medical procedures. In 2016, doctors were forced to remove part of his intestines during emergency surgery.
But according to Manganiello, the physical suffering was only part of the problem.
He claims his marriage had “become devoid of any emotionality whatsoever” during his years of illness. He alleges that Vergara refused to hug him, even when he begged her to, and ridiculed him over a five-pound Chihuahua named Bubbles.
The dog, Manganiello explains, had arrived during one of the darkest periods of his life.
“I had to give my gun away because I kept thinking about it, and then the dog came,” he says in the memoir. “I went from being the patient to the caretaker.”
Manganiello says Bubbles became an important source of comfort while he was struggling with his health and contemplating suicide.
The actor also uses Bloodlines to dispute one of the most commonly reported explanations for his 2023 divorce from Vergara.
Vergara previously said that the marriage ended because Manganiello wanted children while she did not want to become “an old mom.” Manganiello now claims that his health battle actually caused him to abandon his dream of becoming a father.
After unsuccessful IVF attempts, the couple reportedly discussed using an egg donor. But Manganiello says he feared dying and leaving Vergara with a child who “wasn’t biologically hers.”
“There were things said and printed about me that were false,” he says.
Manganiello eventually underwent another surgery to reconnect his digestive tract and says he is now symptom-free and off medication.
These days, he’s engaged to Caitlin O’Connor and says he is finally looking toward the future — including possibly becoming a father.
“For seven years I thought I was going to be dead the next week,” Manganiello says. “The world has opened back up to me.”
Bloodlines is scheduled for release on October 13.
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