Joe Manganiello is recalling his private seven-year health battle.
“TRIGGER WARNING,” Manganiello, 49, began in an Instagram post on Thursday, October 15, sharing a look at his hospitalization “in pictures.”
“In the days following the amputation of my large intestine, my weight began to plummet,” he wrote alongside an image of himself sitting in a hospital recliner chair. “I would ultimately lose a total of 60 [pounds] during the two weeks following the surgery. If you zoom in, you can see the top of my first ostomy bag creeping up over the sheets.”
The True Blood alum revealed in his recently released memoir, Bloodlines, that he underwent multiple colonoscopies before having emergency surgery to remove part of his intestines amid a mysterious autoimmune condition. His illness remains undiagnosed.
Manganiello also shared images of his face and abdomen, revealing that he developed several skin conditions while recovering from surgery that removed the ostomy bag.
“[The third picture is] an example of the multitude of skin conditions I was plagued with during the seven years I was sick,” he wrote. “My skin, an immune organ, was stricken with just about every condition known to man, usually in combination.”
Manganiello first began experiencing symptoms in 2016 after collapsing on a film set in North Carolina.
“Rectal blood sprayed out, turning the bathroom floor into a crimson pool, staining the walls, the sink, and tile grout bright red,” he recalled of his intestine rupturing, per a book excerpt obtained by The Hollywood Reporter. “My entire large intestine had turned to pus and was about to explode. Had they not cut me open that morning, it would have ruptured, and I would have died immediately of sepsis.”
Manganiello was married to actress Sofía Vergara at the time, whom he credited with making the “brutal but life-saving decision” to have his intestine removed.
“She’d just watched me die and come back to life through the marvel of modern science,” he penned of Vergara, 54. “I think during my illness part of her had begun to adapt to the traumatic thought of living her life without me.”
Vergara and Manganiello were married for seven years until their separation in 2023. The now-exes settled their divorce in 2024. Manganiello has since moved on with Caitlin O’Connor, to whom he proposed last year.
“BLOODLINES, written by my fiance, made the ‘WHAT TO READ’ list in the New York Times,” O’Connor, 37, wrote via Instagram earlier this week, celebrating Manganiello’s book accolades ahead of its release. “You can pre-order it now in hardcover & audiobook, it’s available everywhere tomorrow October 13th ❤️.”
