Joe Manganiello was in a hospital bed in 2016 when Sofía Vergara received a decision no newlywed expects to make. Surgeons operating on her husband needed permission to remove his large intestine. In an excerpt from his memoir Bloodlines, published by People, he credits her with authorizing the operation that saved him.
"She made the brutal but lifesaving decision to allow my entire large intestine to be removed," he writes. He woke with an ostomy bag and uncertainty about his future.
The actor known for True Blood and Magic Mike recounts that ordeal in Bloodlines, released by Simon and Schuster on October 13. Mangianello describes seven years of autoimmune-related illnesses affecting his skin, thyroid, eyes, lungs, and digestive system. Chronic pain and repeated medical crises eventually sent him searching beyond doctors' offices, toward spiritual practitioners, religious traditions, and his family's history.
That search included Santería, which Manganiello discussed alongside the orisha Changó in his recent interview on The Rich Roll Podcast. The religion has deep roots in Cuba, but its African heritage predates its development there, and its communities extend across the Caribbean, Latin America, and the United States.
Desperate for answers beyond doctors, he flew to Ecuador for a Santería ritual where he licked the pituitary gland from a goat's skull and sat with a Babalao, who became mounted by an African spirit. A shaman later told him the real cause was generational trauma from his ancestors.
"I think Santería was responsible for a piece of it... this Babalao became mounted by an African spirit... After the first ritual, I woke up and it was gone," said Mangianelo. Then he flew to Cuba for a week for a "cleansing ritual," he described. There "I became the physical embodiment of my god Chango," he added.
Santería is a religion rooted in Yoruba traditions from West Africa that developed in Cuba through encounters with Catholicism. It belongs to a larger family of African diaspora religions shaped by enslavement, displacement and the preservation of spiritual knowledge across generations. Calling it Afro-Cuban describes its historical development; it does not limit who practices it or where its traditions live today.
Joe Manganiello spent years battling a mystery autoimmune illness that almost killed him, lost part of his intestine, and lived with an ostomy bag. Desperate for answers beyond doctors, he flew to Cuba for a Santería ritual where he licked the pituitary gland from a goat’s skull… pic.twitter.com/aI7RSqgmtb
— Trig (@TKOTriggerX) October 12, 2026
Manganiello's account also connects his spiritual search with Vergara. According to passages reported by Entertainment Weekly, a practitioner living in Cuba told the couple during a telephone conversation that someone from her past had placed a curse on him. Manganiello writes that the man's apparent knowledge of his intestinal problems startled him. The practitioner offered a cleansing and proposed meeting outside the United States. Those assertions appear as part of Manganiello's recollection, without independent evidence establishing that a curse existed or caused his illness.
Santería's history begins long before a Hollywood memoir. Enslaved Africans carried religious knowledge to the Americas under conditions designed to strip them of their freedom, languages and identities. In Cuba, Yoruba deities became associated with Catholic saints as African traditions survived within a colonial society that imposed Christianity.
Catholic imagery helped preserve those traditions. Yemayá, associated with the sea and motherhood, is also honored through Our Lady of Regla, whose church stands across Havana's bay. For some believers, Catholic devotion and orisha worship continue to coexist.
That blending is called religious syncretism. Santería's name reflects the association with saints, although many practitioners prefer Lukumí or Regla de Ocha-Ifá. Harvard's Pluralism Project explains that some reject "Santería" because it gives greater emphasis to Catholic influence than to the religion's African legacy.
Changó, associated with lightning, is linked with Saint Barbara; Babalú Ayé is associated with Saint Lazarus. These correspondences help explain why Catholic figures appear in religious settings centered on African deities.
Within orisha traditions, believers recognize a supreme creator, commonly called Olodumare, and cultivate relationships with spiritual beings who guide different aspects of life. Ancestors also hold an important place. Religious ceremonies honor those who came before, preserving connections between living communities and their deceased relatives and spiritual predecessors.
Those relationships take practical forms: offerings, prayers, divination, initiation, music and dance. Fruit may be offered to an orisha, while drumming and movement function as religious expression. During some ceremonies, participants understand a practitioner's trance as the presence of an orisha communicating with the community. These practices belong to an organized religious life, with responsibilities and knowledge passed through trained practitioners.
Communities often gather in an ilé, a religious house led by a priest or priestess. Godparents guide initiates through relationships that create spiritual families. A babalawo has a specific role in divination within Ifá; the term identifies religious training and authority more precisely than the generic word "shaman" often used in celebrity coverage.
Migration and religious networks have carried these communities far beyond Cuba. Research published in the journal Península documents Santería's establishment in Mérida, Mexico, through movement among Mexico, Cuba and the United States. The study also describes its circulation in Venezuela, Colombia, Panama and other Latin American countries. Its expansion involves local converts and continuing relationships across borders, as well as migration.
In South Florida, the religion's visibility has also brought conflict. In 1993, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated Hialeah ordinances targeting animal sacrifice in Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah. The justices found that the city's measures violated religious freedom principles. Animal sacrifice forms part of certain ceremonies, but the religion also encompasses the offerings, family relationships and everyday obligations less likely to generate headlines.
For Manganiello, the search unfolded as illness strained his marriage and plans for parenthood. He told People that he relinquished hopes of becoming a father because he feared dying and leaving Vergara to raise a child. People reported that her representatives had not responded to its request for comment on his account.
Manganiello now says his symptoms have been absent for more than three years, although he still lives with consequences of his surgeries. His memoir follows doctors, spiritual advisers and ancestral discoveries through an experience he describes as a fight for survival. Santería enters that personal story with a much longer history behind it: communities preserving faith, seeking guidance and sustaining relationships through illness, grief and change.
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