Modern Family Star Sofía Vergara's Exes Have Had Plenty To Say About Her

Sofía Vergara is an incredibly famous and successful actor. Her work on "Modern Family" led to her being the highest-paid female television actor for several years in a row, garnered her four out of her five Primetime Emmy nominations, and helped her amass millions of followers on social media. Amid the process of becoming the wildly successful woman she is today, Vergara has had multiple high-profile romantic relationships.

From engagements and marriages to short-term boyfriends and flings, Vergara has had all sorts of romantic relationships, with one even giving her a son. None of Vergara's relationships have lasted more than a decade, and some, even in their aftermath, seem to have included storylines that are juicy enough for a project she would star in. Much of those storylines have been shared with the public not by Vergara, but by the men she was in relationships with. Many of her exes are as happy to talk about Vergara as they must have been to be in a relationship with her to begin with. Take a look below and see exactly what "Modern Family" star Sofía Vergara's exes have had to say about her.

Before the stunning Sofía Vergara transformed into an international superstar and one of the highest-paid women in television, she was a young mother raising her child with her high school boyfriend in Colombia. At just 19 years old, Sofía gave birth to her son, Manolo Gonzalez Vergara (pictured above), and two years later, she and her husband, Joe Gonzalez, got divorced. Then at 24, Sofía and her son moved to Miami with Sofía's sights set on fame in America. "It was super hard," the TV powerhouse recalled in Us Weekly in 2025. "There are things that, as a young person, you're not supposed to be thinking about. It's a lot of pressure and you're trying to figure out your own life."

While Sofía's first husband stays out of the limelight and isn't exactly the type to give interviews to outlets, the "Modern Family" star and her son have spoken on his behalf, confirming that Sofía and Gonzalez established a solid coparenting dynamic. "He was my high school sweetheart, and we got divorced, but we were always good friends. He lived in Colombia, so it was difficult for him to see Manolo a lot, but he'd make the effort [and they'd] see each other at least once or twice a year. He's always been there, and he has a great relationship with Manolo," Sofía said. "We're totally cool. We don't see each other as often because of the distance, but we do what we can," Manolo added.

Sofía Vergara's romantic history is quite fascinating. One of her most curious reported relationships was with Chris Paciello, a nightclub owner and convicted felon who served time for racketeering charges. Vergara was linked to Paciello in the late '90s while the two were living in Miami, and according to sources, Vergara knew about Paciello's checkered past when she began dating him. 

Neither Vergara nor Paciello have really said anything about each other in the press, but there's been a decent amount of speculation about the nature of their relationship. Per a 2000 Vanity Fair story, Vergara and Paciello were "serious." "They seemed very much in love," a source told the New York Post.

In December 1999, Paciello was arrested on racketeering charges connected to a murder and robbery. Vergara and Paciello's relationship soon hit the skids. According a January 2000 reported from The New York Times, Vergara referred to herself as his ex at his trial. Vergara not only attended his trial, but reportedly pledged use her home in Miami as collateral for Paciello's $15 million bail. He was convicted later that year and spent six years in prison.

While Sofía Vergara dated here and there after her split from Joe Gonzalez, her first engagement after that relationship wasn't until 2012. Vergara and Nick Loeb were engaged two years — together for a total of four years — before ending things entirely in 2014. "We have [been] having too many problems with figuring out how to spend time together and [because] of my work and now his, [it's] been getting worse and worse, not fun anymore," Vergara said when announcing their split, per People. 

The split overlapped with Vergara's meteoric rise. "Modern Family" was in the middle of its run, and according to one source, Vergara and Loeb's relationship evidently wasn't cut out for her fame. "Nick and Sofia were always on rocky grounds, especially in the last year or so. It has been worse since she has become a real superstar and is so busy and in demand everywhere. It's hard for them to have a normal relationship, much less spend enough time together," the source said.

Despite the end of their relationship, Loeb has had good things to say about his ex-fiancé. In an interview on "Today," the businessman told Hoda Kotb that the downfall of their relationship and the messy aftermath had nothing to do with Vergara as a person. "I have tremendous respect for Sofia. She's very successful; she's very smart. This is not something that's new," Loeb said.

As noted, the aftermath of Sofia Vergara and Nick Loeb's relationship was quite messy. While they were still together, Vergara and Loeb went through in vitro fertilization (IVF) to create and freeze embryos. The two also signed a contract that stated that the embryos could not be transferred to a womb unless both Vergara and Loeb consented. However, the contract did not state what would happen in the event that Vergara and Loeb broke up, and due to his personal beliefs, Loeb did not want his and Vergara's embryos to remain frozen. Therefore, Loeb brought forth a lawsuit seeking custody of the embryos in an effort to bring them to term.

Vergara then filed a countersuit in an effort to block Loeb from bringing the embryos to term without her consent. The two were in a legal battle for years, and while Loeb initially filed his complaint using pseudonyms, his identity in the suit was made public, leading him to embrace the notoriety and take to outlets like The New York Times and "Today" to plead his case to the public. 

During his campaign, Loeb insisted that he wasn't a scorned ex who was just trying to be petty. "[Our relationship] has nothing to do with this at all. This has to do with bigger, really moral, legal, ethical concepts about lives we've already created," Loeb told Hoda Kotb in the aforementioned interview. Ultimately, the courts sided with Vergara; Loeb was not able to use the embryos without Vergara's consent.

Sofía Vergara's most high-profile relationship to date was with "Magic Mike" star Joe Manganiello. The two met in 2014 at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner, and shortly thereafter they went on their first date. Vergara was newly single after ending her engagement to Nick Loeb, and within months of dating Manganiello, she publicly confirmed her new relationship. The duo were engaged by the end of the year, and in November of 2015, they got married. They seemed to be one of Hollywood's happiest couples, but in 2023, after nearly eight years of marriage, Vergara and Manganiello announced their divorce. "Joe has absolutely nothing bad to say about her. She is a great woman. They were just not great together in the long run," a source told People.

Rumors soon swirled that they ultimately ended things because they couldn't see eye-to-eye on the subject of having kids. The following year, Vergara told Spanish newspaper El País (via People) that was indeed the reason for 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.

But Manganiello told a different story. As he wrote in his 2026 memoir, "Bloodlines," he gave up on the idea of having kids with Vergara before it ever had an impact on their marriage. "There were things said and printed about me that were false," he said.

Joe Manganiello did not want the narrative to continue that his marriage to Sofía Vergara ended because he wanted children and she didn't. As he told Men's Health in 2024, "We did try to have a family for the first year and a half. 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 okay.'" They went through IVF treatment, but weren't able to conceive a child. And according to Manganiello, he accepted this outcome. "I swore to her that I would never leave if it didn't work out," he said. "And I didn't."

Manganiello also shared his perspective of what did lead to his divorce from Vergara, confirming that he did want children and she didn't, but denying that their disagreement on children is what caused their split. "It's because two people grew apart, and sometimes that happens," the actor said. Manganiello was also upset with how he was viewed by the public. "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," he said. Manganiello has since moved on to another relationship. Shortly after his split from Vergara, he began dating TV host Caitlin O'Connor, and in 2025, the two got engaged.

There does not seem to be much love lost between Sofía Vergara and her ex-husband Joe Manganiello. Following their divorce, Manganiello penned a tell-all memoir called "Bloodlines," and in it he described an illness that plagued him for years during his marriage to Vergara and how the illness impacted their relationship. Manganiello wrote that he had "become devoid of any emotionality whatsoever" while suffering from the undiagnosed illness, and he said that during his sickness, Vergara would not even hug him even after he asked. "I was getting sicker and sicker ... It happened to me, and it's the truth, and I have all the scars to prove it," he said of his illness.

Manganiello hid his illness from the public for years, and it wasn't until his marriage was nearing its end that he thought about sharing it with the world. In his book, he recalled the epiphany he had about his illness, his career, and his marriage while out walking the dog one day. "As I stood there watching [Bubbles], two things came to me: First, my marriage was over; second, maybe my life would be of more use if I went public with my condition. I had come to understand that there were aspects of my life that were far more important than acting," he wrote.

Sofía Vergara is a very wealthy woman. Her estimated net worth, per Celebrity Net Worth, is a cool $180 million/ Meanwhile, her ex-husband Joe Manganiello is estimated at a net worth of $40 million, per Celebrity Net Worth. While $40 million is nothing to sneeze at, it pales in comparison to $180 million, and going off of something Vergara said after divorcing Manganiello, the financial chasm may have been an issue. "I want somebody that has as much money as me or more, because if not, it's a nightmare. They end up resenting you," Vergara said on a 2025 episode of "Today" when discussing what she's looking for in a partner.

Manganiello did not take kindly to that remark. In his memoir, "Bloodlines," Manganiello wrote, "Sofía also made a comment about what a 'nightmare' it was for her to be with a man who made less money than her, which was a low blow knowing how much money I made when we first met versus everything I'd lost while she watched me battle for my life for seven years. It was ugly, and meant to be emasculating, and interpreted by the press and social media without the real context." Manganiello added that in the end, he was able to shrug off Vergara's comments about money because at the end of the day, he built his own successful career.

In his memoir, "Bloodlines," Joe Manganiello was very candid about the lens through which he views his marriage to Sofía Vergara now that it is over. The "True Blood" actor believed that, during their marriage, he was transparent with her and gave their relationship his all. "Despite what these people were writing, I never played games, and I was honest in my relationships to a fault. I always put other people's feelings ahead of my own, which was true in my marriage from day one," the star wrote, noting that he felt unfairly maligned in the press after Vergara's statements about what ended their marriage.

Manganiello also detailed the last conversation he ever had with Vergara, claiming that Vergara said she believed Manganiello was going to get sick again after having found relief from his illness. "She also let me know that in her opinion, no one was going to love me when they found out the full extent of what I had. That was the last time I ever spoke to her," he said. Despite the turmoil, Manganiello wants only good things for his ex-wife. "In the grand scheme of life, I wished nothing but the best for her. She had the unfortunate luck of having her marriage to me ruined by this insidious illness. She didn't ask for that," he said.

Sofía Vergara's dating history includes one very high-profile suitor. The "Modern Family" star reportedly dated Tom Cruise in the mid-aughts, though it seems it never got serious. Per SFGate, Vergara said at the time, "I've only known Tom for a very short time. It's funny because the media creates what they want to create." Well, that "short time" may have stuck with someone. According to Heat magazine (via The Mirror), Cruise supposedly told friends years later that Vergara was "the one that got away." Now, of course, this story hasn't been corroborated by either of the stars involved, so it's important to take it all with more than a few grains of salt.

After Vergara's split from Joe Manganiello, Cruise reportedly wanted to restart their romance. "They do have that history already, even if it was more of a brief dalliance than a fully-fledged romance," a source claimed to the outlet. "It's always eaten away at Tom that he dumped Sofía and chose Katie [Holmes]," the source added. Apparently, Cruise believed that he and Vergara would be a power couple in Hollywood were they to begin dating. 

This relationship rekindling, apparently to Cruise's chagrin, never came to fruition. According to sources, Cruise's attempts were damned from the start. "Sofía's going to let her hair down and party for a while, then she'll throw herself back into the thick of it and start dating once the divorce is finalised," a source said of Vergara in the wake of the divorce. Instead of moving on with Cruise, Vergara moved on with orthopedic surgeon Dr. Justin Saliman. When that relationship ended, she began dating Douglas Chabbott, a businessman who she's been with ever since.