Joe Manganiello Lived in the Shadows With a Mystery Illness. Now He’s Finally Telling the Full Story.

YOU KNOW JOE Manganiello for his roles in movies like Spider-Man or Magic Mike. What you may not know about Joe Manganiello is that he’s been balancing most of his life on screen and in the public eye with a mysterious autoimmune disease that frequently put his life in danger. “I had lived a closeted existence with this illness for, like, ten years,” he says. “Any time I left my house, I was pretending to be somebody else. Everything was small talk. I just longed for the day when I could leave my house and know that the story was out there…that I don’t have to pretend to be somebody else anymore.”

Manganiello is telling his story in the debut episode of Super Good, a new filmed Men’s Health podcast hosted by Rich Dorment, editorial director of Men’s Health and Women’s Health where compelling guests talk about the routines, rituals, and real-life strategies that help them feel their best—and much more.

The 49-year-old actor and author of Bloodlines, his new memoir, shares his wide-ranging story, which also includes the importance of landing the role of Deathstroke in Ben Affleck’s The Batman, which he prepared for amidst various complications and issues related to his illness. It’s also a movie that, despite Manganiello filming a scene that appeared in Justice League to tease, never ended up happening. “When I got the call that Batman was over, it was like the brakes got slammed and everything flew into the windshield,” he explains. “And now I needed to start cleaning it up. It was then that I looked into the mirror and saw the scars and saw what happened to me and realized this is my life. I was in a nightmare, somehow.”