Joe Manganiello Says Sofía Vergara’s Claims About Why They Divorced Are “Simply Not True”

After a highly publicized divorce from fellow actor Sofía Vergara, Joe Manganiello got a tattoo. Now, he’s having his say.

Just shy of one year to the day from a joint statement confirming their divorce, Manganiello shared in an interview with Men’s Journal that Vergara’s claims about why their marriage ended were “simply not true.” The Magic Mike actor has stayed mum about the unraveling of his seven-year marriage to Vergara, even as his ex has attributed it to Manganiello wanting to have children while she did not.

In January, Vergara told El País, “My marriage broke up because my husband was younger; he wanted to have kids and I didn’t want to be an old mom.”

Manganiello recalled in the interview that the former couple “did try to have a family for the first year and a half.” “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,” he said.

Yes, he did want kids, he told the outlet, but that “wasn’t inevitably why everything ended,” he said. “It’s because two people grew apart, and sometimes that happens.”

Vergara, who turned 52 last week, has a son from her first marriage. She gave birth to the now 32-year-old Manolo when she was 19 years old. She told People earlier this year that “I didn’t think because of my career, the way I live my life, the way my marriage was, that it was fair to bring a kid to this world, and I’m not going to be able to give 100 percent.”

Manganiello, for his part, said he was hurt by the characterization.

“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.”

Representatives for Sofía Vergara did not immediately respond to Vanity Fair’s request for comment.