Sofía Vergara Responds to Joe Manganiello's Comments About Their Divorce

Sofía Vergara and Joe Manganiello announced their split in July 2023.

By Anna Rumer

Sofía Vergara isn't going to fight Joe Manganiello on his perspective about the end of their marriage. The Modern Family star, 52, shared a measured response in a new Variety profile after her ex-husband recently claimed that her reasoning for their divorce was "not true."

Vergara had publicly shared that she and the Magic Mike star, 47, divorced in July 2023 because she didn't want to be an "old mom" and have more children, a perspective Manganiello denied to Men's Journal last month as "simply not true."

2023 Vanity Fair Oscar Party Hosted By Radhika Jones – Arrivals
(Photo:

Joe Manganiello and Sofía Vergara attend the 2023 Vanity Fair Oscar Party Hosted By Radhika Jones at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on March 12, 2023 in Beverly Hills, California.

- Amy Sussman / Getty Images)

Despite the difference in narrative, the America's Got Talent judge told Variety she isn't weighing in definitively. "At the end of the day, you never even know if that's what he said for real," she explained in a profile published Aug. 14. "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."

However, Vergara stands by her perspective and called sharing the disagreement over children in her marriage "empowering." The Griselda actress, who has a 32-year-old son, Manolo, from her previous marriage to Joe Gonzalez, previously told El País in January that 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. I respect whoever does it, but that's not for me anymore," she continued, noting that she "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."

Los Angeles Premiere of "Ready Player One"
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Actors Joe Manganiello and Sofia Vergara arrive at the Premiere of Warner Bros. Pictures' 'Ready Player One' at Dolby Theatre on March 26, 2018 in Hollywood, California.

- Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic/Getty Images)

In response, Manganiello told Men's Journal that there had been "a lot said in the press about me wanting a family." The Deal or No Deal Island host claimed that he and Vergara "did try to have a family for the first year and a half" of their marriage and that he had told her early on in their relationship, "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."

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Manganiello continued that it's been frustrating "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."

Manganiello has hinted at having kids in the future with girlfriend Caitlin O'Connor, however. "It's something that's definitely on the docket," he said on the Podcrushed podcast last month. "At some point."

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