Seven years sick and, according to him, not even one hug… What really happened in that home? 💔 Joe Manganiello thought he wouldn’t make it out of that bed alive.
The 49-year-old actor says in his memoir, “Bloodlines”, that the symptoms began shortly after his 2015 wedding to Sofía Vergara.
Abdominal pain so intense he couldn’t walk, ulcers in his digestive tract, fever, blistering rashes, chronic fatigue, and rectal bleeding.
For seven years, no doctor was able to give him a definitive diagnosis. To ease the pain, he was prescribed hydrocodone, fentanyl patches, and marijuana, and his sobriety was put to the test. In 2016, he underwent emergency surgery and ended up losing part of his intestines.
The hardest part, he says, wasn’t just physical. According to his account, his then-wife refused to hug him even when he asked her to and made fun of his puppy, the same animal that, he says, was key when he considered ending his life. The marriage, he says, was “completely devoid of emotion”.
Today, he says he is symptom-free and engaged to Caitlin O’Connor. “I can’t believe I’m alive. I feel like I was reborn”, he told People.
Vergara has yet to respond to these accounts, which are coming to light ahead of the book’s release on October 13.
How heavy is the silence of the person who should have been closest? 💔