Joe Manganiello has opened up about one of the strangest experiences of his seven-year marriage to Sofia Vergara, revealing that a spiritual healer claimed his serious health problems were caused by a curse placed by someone from the actress's past.
The 49-year-old actor recounts the incident in his newly released memoir, Bloodlines, describing a telephone conversation with a shaman based in Cuba during his prolonged battle with an autoimmune illness.
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Manganiello says the healer appeared to know intimate details about his condition, including digestive problems that had not been publicly disclosed, leaving him stunned by the encounter.
"There were members of my close family who didn't know any of that, let alone some random guy on the phone," he wrote.
According to Manganiello, the conversation became even more unsettling when the shaman suggested that someone who previously had romantic feelings for Vergara was responsible for his suffering.
"Someone from your past is still in love with you. He put a voodoo curse on your husband. He did it in New Orleans," the healer allegedly told the couple.
The shaman also offered to perform a spiritual cleansing, requesting that Manganiello travel outside the United States to meet him.
"Your husband needs to be cleansed and protected. I can do this. I can help him," the healer reportedly said, suggesting Ecuador as a possible meeting location.
Manganiello described struggling to understand how a stranger could apparently possess information about his health that few people knew.
"I looked at Sofia, trying to comprehend how the f**k this guy could possibly know any of this," Manganiello recalled. "None of this had been mentioned in the press. No one knew."
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Manganiello subsequently began considering whether the healer might have been referring to Nick Loeb, who had previously been engaged to Vergara.
The actress ended her relationship with Loeb in 2014, shortly before beginning her romance with Manganiello, whom she married the following year.
Manganiello noted that Loeb had lived in New Orleans, a detail he found particularly striking because the shaman had specifically mentioned the city.
"Why did the most insane thing I'd ever heard have to make so much f**king sense?" Manganiello wrote.
Illness overshadowed years of marriage
Manganiello has described developing a serious autoimmune disease shortly after his 2015 wedding, with symptoms including severe abdominal pain, digestive ulcers, fever and debilitating fatigue.
The actor has said the condition became life-threatening and contributed to the deterioration of his marriage, which ended when the couple separated in 2023.
His memoir also explores the emotional consequences of living with chronic illness, including periods when he struggled with suicidal thoughts.
Vergara and Manganiello finalized their separation after seven years of marriage, with both subsequently moving forward in their personal lives.
The extraordinary shaman encounter remains part of Manganiello's account of that difficult period, rather than an established explanation for his illness.