Joe Manganiello responds to Sofia Vergara’s comments about what led to their split

Sofia Vergara opens up about her split from Joe ManganielloIn a new interview with El Pais, the actress revealed the reason behind her separation from her former partner after seven years of marriage.Steve Granitz/FilmMagic/Getty Images
Joe Manganiello is setting the record straight about his split from Sofia Vergara.

In an interview with Men’s Journal, the “Deal or No Deal Island” host opened up about his divorce from the “Griselda” actress and responded to the comments she made in an interview with Spanish newspaper El País earlier this year, in which she said that their marriage ended because Manganiello wanted kids and she didn’t.

“That’s simply not true,” Manganiello said, acknowledging what has been said about him in the press regarding him wanting a family.

The “Magic Mike” star said that he did want to have children with Vergara and said that they “did try to have a family for the first year and a half,” but it “wasn’t inevitably why everything ended.”

“We had a huge conversation right out of the gate during the first month we dated,” he said. “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.”

He said their marriage ending was due to two people who “grew apart.”

“Sometimes that happens,” he said.

In her interview with El País in January, Vergara said that she didn’t want to be an “old mom” and said she wasn’t ready to be a mother anymore, noting that she had her son, Manolo, at 19 with ex-husband Joe Gonzalez, and that she’s “almost in menopause.”

“My marriage broke up because my husband was younger; he wanted to have kids and I didn’t want to be an old mom,” she said. “I feel it’s not fair to the baby. I respect whoever does it, but that’s not for me anymore.”

“I’m ready to be a grandmother, not a mother,” she added. “So, if love comes along, he has to come with [his own] children.”

Manganiello responded to Vergara’s comments and shared how his side of the story was distorted.

“To be painted as if I had some sort of midlife crisis, and after nine years, turned to somebody and gave them an ultimatum of, ‘Do this potentially unhealthy thing to your body, or else I’m gone’? That’s never who I was,” he said.

Joe Manganiello files for divorce from wife Sofia Vergara
Manganiello filed for divorce from Vergara in July 2023 after seven years of marriage. According to a court filing obtained by ABC News at the time, Manganielllo cited irreconcilable differences.

The former couple also released a statement saying, “We have made the difficult decision to divorce.”

Vergara was previously married to Gonzalez from 1991 to 1993 while Vergara was Manganiello’s first marriage.