Joe Manganiello Denies Sofía Vergara’s Claims About What Led to Their Divorce: “Simply Not True”

Joe Manganiello and Sofia Vergara

Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images for Vanity Fair

Joe Manganiello is responding to Sofía Vergara’s claim that they divorced because wanting more kids was a dealbreaker for her.

Vergara had previously revealed in Spanish newspaper El País that her ex-husband’s desire for more children was a big part of their split.

“My marriage broke up because my husband was younger; he wanted to have kids and I didn’t want to be an old mom,” she said. “I 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.”

In an interview with People, Vergara expanded on her reasoning adding, “I totally respect where anyone wants to be a mom after 50. I didn’t think because of my career, the way I live my life, the way my marriage was, that it was fair to bring a kid to this world, and I’m not going to be able to give 100 percent.”

However, Manganiello is giving his perspective.

In a new interview with Men’s Journal, the actor and executive producer of Deal or No Deal Island said, “There’s been a lot said in the press about me wanting a family. That’s simply not true.”

“We did try to have a family for the first year and a half,” he explained. “And we had a huge conversation right out of the gate during the first month we dated. I said, ‘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 with her. And I swore to her that I would never leave if it didn’t work out. And I didn’t.”

Though he does want to have children, Manganiello told the publication that “wasn’t inevitably why everything ended. It’s because two people grew apart, and sometimes that happens.”

“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.”

Vergara and Manganiello announced their split after seven years of marriage in a joint statement last July. “We have made the difficult decision to divorce,” the couple shared in a statement to Page Six. “As two people that love and care for one another very much, we politely ask for respect for our privacy at this time as we navigate this new phase of our lives.”

According to People, the pair first met through Vergara’s Modern Family co-star Jesse Tyler Ferguson at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in 2014.

The former pair have each moved on and are in new relationships. Vergara is dating orthopedic surgeon Justin Saliman while Manganiello has been dating actress Caitlin O’Connor.