Sofía Vergara Breaks Up With Husband, Fans Suspect Something Was Up

Actors Sofía Vergara and Joe Manganiello have issued a joint statement announcing that they have decided to end their marriage after seven years together. In an exclusive interview with Page Six, the couple didn’t give a reason for the split but requested that people respect their privacy.

The couple reportedly met at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in 2014, when Vergara was still engaged to American businessman and actor Nick Loeb. She then ended the engagement and married Joe Manganiello a year later in Palm Beach after six months of dating.

Sofía Vergara has been married once before, to her high-school sweetheart, Joe Gonzalez. The marriage lasted only two years, but they did have a son named Manolo together in 1991. Nearly twenty years later, she got engaged to American businessman and actor Nick Loeb. In the interim, she became a US citizen, after getting a perfect score on her citizenship test and recovering from thyroid cancer in 2008, all while becoming the highest-paid woman on US television, according to Forbes Magazine, with a reported annual income of $43 million in 2020. She never married Nick Loeb, but the couple did create embryos in 2013 to be frozen at a Beverly Hills fertility clinic.

These embryos would ultimately lead to a legal battle after they separated, as Vergara did not want her now ex-fiance to bring them to term. Both had previously signed a contract that stipulated that the embryos would only be used with both parties' mutual consent. Nevertheless, Loeb named the embryos and filed a right-to-live lawsuit against Vergara. In 2021, the courts sided with the defendant and imposed a permanent injunction to stop Loeb from accessing them. Currently, it is unclear whether the embryos still exist or have been destroyed. Nevertheless, the lawsuit brought out a lot of the private arguments the couple had, including screaming fights and Loeb’s insecurities at Vergara speaking Spanish at the dinner table.

Perhaps, fortunately, in 2014, Vergara was introduced to Joe Manganiello at the White House Correspondents' Dinner by a co-star on “Modern Family,” and a year later they were married. Despite a seemingly happy marriage for over half a decade, earlier in the year, fans questioned whether the couple was drifting apart after Joe Manganiello posted a somewhat cold birthday greeting to his wife on Instagram. Many commenters noted the lack of any indications of love or warmth. They contrasted with his greetings in previous years and speculated about their relationship. Soon after, the couple made a joint announcement of divorce, without stating a specific reason. Vergara is still celebrating her birthday in Italy, without her soon-to-be ex-husband, as fans had noted before they even made the announcement. “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 of our privacy at this time as we navigate this new phase of our lives,” they told Page Six, without going into details.