Joe Manganiello Once Shared How He Was Manipulated After Meeting Sofia Vergara
Actors Joe Manganiello and Sofia Vergara didn’t take long to get married after meeting in 2014. But when they first ran into each other, Vergara was already in a relationship at the time. Manganiello didn’t want to be seen ogling the taken actor, but he admitted that he couldn’t help himself.
Joe Manganiello once opened up on meeting Sofia Vergara
Manganiello was very open about his crush on Vergara even before they became a couple. In a 2015 interview he did with On Air with Ryan Seacrest (via E News), Manganiello quipped that he had forgotten about his previous comments about Vergara. And that Vergara once called him out for talking about his crush so openly.
“She was laughing at me,” he remembered. “She thought that I was crazy for having said that out loud or said it in the magazine, but you know, I guess it worked.”
He finally had the chance to meet Vergara during a White House Correspondents dinner. But at the time, Vergara was reportedly dating businessman Nick Loeb. Manganiello didn’t want to interfere with their relationship.
“You’re gonna get me in trouble. I don’t want to be like a home-wrecker. This person is engaged,” he once told People (via Contact Music). “She’s got the curves, she’s got a beautiful face, beautiful hair, just gorgeous. Naturally beautiful. She’s feisty!”
But at the White House dinner, Manganiello couldn’t help but look at Vergara from a distance. Soon a photographer caught him in the act.
“There was a picture someone snapped at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner where they caught me looking at Sofia Vergara’s butt,” he said. “When you talk about being manipulated, that’s what I’m talking about. It’s like a moment of zen. There is nothing in my brain. If only I could meditate that well. I don’t go after other people’s women. She’s got a guy. If she was single, I would be like, poof!”
Joe Manganiello once joked that Sofia Vergara blamed him for ruining her life
It turned out that Loeb’s and Vergara’s engagement didn’t last long. After Vergara called off the planned wedding, Manganiello was quickly told about the actor’s newfound single-status. He was worried that another potential suitor might charm Vergara before he could. So Manganiello flew across the country to visit her while she was shooting the movie Hot Pursuit. The two would date for a year afterwards, and would later marry in 2015.
Manganiello quipped that the Modern Family star didn’t expect to get into a relationship so soon after ending things with Loeb. Manganiello wasn’t a part of her plans.
“So I flew out there and took her out on a date. She’s blamed me ever since for ruining her life because she was supposed to be single. But I didn’t let that happen. And here we are,” he once said according to Daily Mail.
Sofia Vergara thought her marriage with Joe Manganiello might be too much work
Vergara’s and Manganiello’s marriage lasted for eight years before their recent divorce in 2024. But far before their break-up, Vergara quipped that she had a few concerns regarding marrying the actor. She wondereds if Manganiello might’ve been too handsome for her tastes.
“I didn’t want to go into a relationship with somebody that … I thought he was going to be too much work, because girls were throwing themselves at him,” she once said on Jimmy Kimmel Live. “I’m like, ‘Ay! No! Please, I want somebody normal.'”
Vergara even asserted that women would flirt with Manganiello even when she was with him.
“Girls don’t care,” she added. “I mean, have you seen him? I mean, I understand. I don’t judge them.”
