What to Know
Divorces can be messy, especially for celebrities who exist in the public eye and deal with a ton of speculation from the general public. It’s much harder to avoid rumors and discourse around a split when you’re airing your drama publicly, which seems to be happening with Joe Manganiello and Sofía Vergara right now.
Sofía and Joe split up in 2023. Joe is currently promoting his new book, Bloodlines, which details his struggles with autoimmune illness. His divorce is not the focus of this particular memoir, but the fact that Sofía and her son took to Instagram to share a message about narcissists as he was promoting it did not seem like a coincidence to some people.
Sofía’s 35-year-old son originally shared a post comparing “good” men and “narcissistic” men.
The post he shared was a chart that outlined some of the differences between the two. It claimed that a “narcissistic man” will “gaslight,” “blameshift,” “lie,” “demand you listen,” and “envy and resent you,” among other negative qualities.
The post was captioned with, “remember kids, when dealing with a narcissist, it doesn’t matter how much you do for them, because they will resent you for it and nothing will never be enough, and they’ll always somehow try to paint you as the bad guy.” The post did not name names, but some fans thought it seemed like a pointed jab directed at Joe. After all, Sofía re-shared the post to her Instagram Stories while Joe is promoting his book. The book is not about their marriage specifically, but it does include some less-than-favorable details about Sofía, like how she allegedly wouldn’t hug him.
Gayle King even questioned Joe about the Instagram post.
During his October 12 appearance on CBS Mornings, Gayle suggested that this post about narcissists seemed to be about Joe and asked him how he felt about it.
“Her son posted a thing about, ‘This is what happens when you deal with a narcissistic man,’ and she has liked that post,” Gayle pointed out. “They appear to be saying that basically, it’s terrible what happened to you, but the bottom line is that you’re a narcissist. What do you say to that?”
Arguably, Joe did not appear to really take the bait. He seemed more focused on promoting his book and less interested in discussing his divorce. “Well, I think anybody who said that should read the book first and understand what the book is actually about because it’s not about that,” he explained. “It’s about the suffering I went through.” He emphasized that the book “isn’t about my marriage” and is actually “about this journey that I went through.”
The health scare didn’t occur in a vacuum, and it ultimately did impact his marriage.
He didn’t shy away from writing about that in the book, but when speaking to People, he described it as “nuanced,” which means two things can be true at the same time: Sofía made a decision that ultimately saved his life, and also, as his health issues persisted for seven years, his marriage “(became) devoid of any emotionality whatsoever.”
When speaking to Gayle, Joe explained that while the health scare obviously had a significant impact on him, it inevitably affected those around him as well, including his then-wife.
“It affected me in a certain way. It affected her. It affected family members,” he said. “It was seven years long. I was living in secret with this, only the closest people around me knew what I was going through.”
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