Nearly a year after filing for divorce from Sofía Vergara, Joe Manganiello is denying her claim their relationship imploded because he wanted a baby.
“There’s been a lot said in the press about me wanting a family,” the “Deal or No Deal Island” host told Men’s Health in a piece published Tuesday. “That’s simply not true.”
In January, Vergara, 52, told El País her marriage “broke up because my husband was younger; he wanted to have kids, and I didn’t want to be an old mom. I feel it’s not fair to the baby.”
Vergara has a 32-year-old son named Manolo from her first marriage.
Manganiello, 47, however, told Men’s Health the former couple did attempt to get pregnant in the beginning.
“We did try to have a family for the first year and a half,” he revealed. “And 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 OK.’ 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.”
Manganiello filed for divorce in July 2023 after eight years of marriage, citing “irreconcilable differences.”
The “True Blood” alum said that although he did want to have kids, he and Vergara didn’t make it because “two people grew apart, and sometimes that happens.”
He also told the magazine he was hurt by the narrative that he left her because she didn’t want children.
“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 explained.
Last year, the couple issued a joint statement that said, “We have made the difficult decision to divorce. As two people that love and care for one another very much, we politely ask for respect for our privacy at this time as we navigate this new phase of our lives.”
Manganiello is now dating actress Caitlin O’Connor, 34, and Vergara is in a relationship with orthopedic surgeon Justin Saliman.
Fox News Digital has reached out to reps for Vergara for comment.
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