Joe Manganiello opens up about 'near death' 7-year health struggle and 'amputation'
Rhianna Benson
Featured Image Credit: Brenton Ho/Variety via Getty Images
For almost eight years, actor Joe Manganiello battled an unorthodox illness that almost cost him his life.
The Magic Mike star kept his health battle private until this week, when an excerpt of his incoming memoir Bloodlines was shared with fans, detailing his courageous recovery.
Much of the hype around the book stems from the cover, showing Manganiello photographed for the first time since August 2025, exhibiting a very different look from his appearance at a premiere of The Wizard of Oz in Las Vegas last year.
According to the press release, the work will hear the 49-year-old opened up on 'a previously undisclosed health ordeal – marked by multiple near-death experiences and medical crises'.
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It'll also recount how this experience 'led him beyond medicine and into a remarkable, globe-spanning quest that revealed answers about his ancestry, inherited trauma, and the deeper histories we carry'.
Manganiello - whose divorce from Sofia Vergara was finalised last year - claims his health declined 'without warning' some years earlier, following a 'cascade of autoimmune-related illnesses' which attacked his skin, thyroid, eyes, lungs, and digestive system'.
By Manganiello's own admission, unaware of the extent to his condition in the early days, he relied upon 'shamans, pagan rituals, ancient myths, long-lost family records and the rebirth of his own spirituality' to aid his ailing health, to no avail.
Only when he tracked down his family lineage and discovered that some of his ancestors had battled a similar, chronic illness, was the TV star able to seek a proper course of treatment.
Tragically, however, this involved a 'life-saving organ amputation, existential crisis, and a prolonged fight for survival'.
Discussing the book, and his overall health today, with PEOPLE, Manganiello confessed: "It was the most brutally difficult time of my life, one I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, but also my greatest adventure."
"I hope that what I went through on this journey can give readers hope that answers and healing may lie for them on the other side of whatever they are fighting through."
He added: "The process of writing this book gave me the gift of perspective that helped me to see that my suffering was a cocoon from which I would emerge forever changed."