When Sofía Vergara and Joe Manganiello announced their divorce in July 2023, fans were shocked. The Modern Family actress and Magic Mike actor had been married for seven years. To the public eye, all seemed well with their relationship—but more than a year later, the exes still give conflicting accounts of why their marriage ended.
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Sofía and Joe met in 2014 through her Modern Family costar, Jesse Tyler Ferguson. Joe soon proposed, and then the couple married in November 2015. And recently, Sofía refuted Joe's claims that they divorced over a disagreement about having children.
Joe shared in July that he and Sofía initially tried to have kids together.
In July, Joe sat down with Men's Journal for an exclusive interview.
"We did try to have a family for the first year and a half," he told the publication, speaking of his divorce from Sofía. "And we had a huge conversation right out of the gate during the first month we dated."
Joe added: "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."
However, he clarified they did not divorce over kids.
As Joe told Men's Journal, having children "wasn't inevitably why everything ended. It's because two people grew apart, and sometimes that happens."
The 47-year-old True Blood actor continued, "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."
In August, Sofía responded to Joe's comments.
In an August 14 Variety article, Sofía publicly responded to Joe's comments about their divorce.
"At the end of the day, you never even know if that’s what he said for real," she told the publication. "I’ve read a lot of things that I’ve said that I’m like, 'Huh?' What am I gonna do, call him? I don’t know if he even said that."
She previously opened up about why she and Joe divorced.
In January, Sofía touched on her divorce during an interview with Spanish newspaper El País.
"I'm newly divorced from my second husband, who I was with for 10 years," she told the publication. "My marriage broke up because my husband was younger. He wanted to have kids and I didn't want to be an old mom."
Sofía said having a child at this stage in her life is 'not fair to the baby.'
"I feel it's not fair to the baby," Sofía told El País. "I respect whoever does it, but that's not for me anymore. I had a son at 19, who is now 32, and I’m ready to be a grandmother, not a mother. So, if love comes along, he has to come with [his own] children."
Since their split, Joe and Sofía have moved on with new partners.
Currently, Joe is dating actress Caitlin O’Connor. They went Instagram official in February, and news broke shortly afterward that they had moved in together.
Meanwhile, Sofía became Instagram official with a new boyfriend Justin Saliman in April. Justin is an orthopedic surgeon, and the couple recently enjoyed a European vacation.
