{"id":920847,"date":"2026-10-08T16:54:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T16:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/920847\/"},"modified":"2026-10-08T16:54:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T16:54:12","slug":"joe-manganiello-memoir-excerpt-from-deaths-door-to-afflecks-batman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/920847\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Manganiello Memoir Excerpt: From Death\u2019s Door to Affleck\u2019s Batman"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWhen Joe Manganiello<\/a> collapsed in pain on the set of Six in Wilmington, North Carolina, in 2016, the 39-year-old was at the apex of his career. He had made his name as Alcide, the sensitive and impossibly ripped werewolf in HBO\u2019s True Blood, which led to the meaty role of Big Dick Richie in Steven Soderbergh\u2019s critically acclaimed Magic Mike movies. People magazine had named him \u201cHollywood\u2019s Hottest Bachelor\u201d in 2014 and a year later, he wed Modern Family star Sofia Vergara<\/a>. He was on the cusp of the A-list when a mysterious ailment cut him down. For weeks an autoimmune disease doctors couldn\u2019t explain had been attacking his thyroid and ravaging his intestines. Now he could no longer endure the excruciating pain.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tBLOODLINES: A Memoir<\/a>, by Joe Manganiello<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSimon & Schuster<\/p>\n

\n\tDuring his extended stay in the hospital, the man who had come this close to being case as the next Superman, whose abs had made Arnold Schwarzenegger envious, withered from a hulking 235 pounds to 176, \u201ca weight I hadn\u2019t been since middle school,\u201d he writes in his new memoir. Then came what he would recall as \u201cThe Night in Hell\u201d: \u201cRectal blood sprayed out, turning the bathroom floor into a crimson pool, staining the walls, the sink, and tile grout bright red.\u201d The next day he was rushed into surgery. \u201cMy 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vergara, as his next of kin, \u201cmade the brutal but lifesaving decision to allow my entire large intestine to be removed and a hole to be cut into my abdomen to divert my small intestine\u201d into an ostomy bag he would have to wear for an unknown amount of time.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs Manganiello was just beginning to recover, weaning himself with difficulty from a heavy regimen of painkillers that had tested his sobriety, his agent called with the news that Ben Affleck<\/a> wanted to discuss a role in the new Batman<\/a> movie. Concealing his condition, adrenaline masking his pain, Manganiello powered through a meeting with Affleck, offered him the role of Deathstroke, the main villain in the Batman movie Affleck was writing, directing and starring in. In an excerpt from his memoir, Blo<\/a>o<\/a>dlines<\/a> (out October 13 from Avid Reader Press), Manganiello recounts how the offer gave him the motivation to begin clawing his way back to health \u2014 even as his marriage was beginning to fall apart.<\/p>\n

\n\tListen to Manganiello read the below passage in a clip from the Bloodlines audiobook.<\/p>\n

\n\tShe\u2019d watched me transform from the strongest man she\u2019d ever known to a skeleton who could barely move on his own. She had been preparing for me to die and was clearly, deeply traumatized by her fear of my impending abandonment via death.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI just got offered the biggest role of my life,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAre you insane?\u201d she shouted at me. \u201cYou can\u2019t do this movie!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShe wasn\u2019t entirely wrong. There was a Gremlin in the control room of my body that had locked the door so no one could stop it and was madly flipping the control switches. It was against all odds that I was still breathing. My doctors were scrambling to find out which medication designed for rheumatoid arthritis and other conditions that I didn\u2019t specifically have would mitigate my symptoms. They were unsuccessfully trying to solve one part of a many part problem, pumping me full of these drugs, one after the other, all of which had horrific side effects. Sofia had every reason to say what she did, but the way I saw it, I had one job now: to prepare for this role. It was just the carrot I needed dangled in front of me, the one that would lead me out of this nightmare that had become my life. I needed to believe, even if it turned out to be a delusion, that one year from now I could handle the rigors of shooting a superhero movie for six months.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis would be my trial by fire. The operation had left me with scars: the long one below my belly button that looked like I\u2019d been split open with a survival knife, plus two smaller ones on the right side of my abdomen where the catheters had been inserted. They were very fresh, and while they might raise eyebrows if they were seen, they were nothing compared to the golf ballsized hole the doctors had drilled through my stomach wall to pull out the end of my fleshy, pink small intestine that was now covered by a large plastic ostomy bag.<\/p>\n

\n\tAdjusting to life without a large intestine was like waking up in someone else\u2019s body. Without the storage capacity of a colon, within minutes of eating anything, my body would immediately output waste through the stoma. There was no real way to feel when it was going to start or stop. Sometimes it began thirty minutes after eating, some-times sooner. Since I was trying to gain all that weight back, eating steadily all day long, my digestive system worked around the clock, which meant I changed bags constantly and got no rest, even over-night.<\/p>\n

\n\tI had the routine down though. I\u2019d take an adhesive putty, work a piece of it in my fingers until it was pliable and sticky, and spread it in a circle around the protruding hole. I\u2019d then adhere a plastic ring to the putty, making sure it was airtight, before snapping an ostomy bag to the ring. When applied perfectly, the stoma emptied directly into the bag and didn\u2019t leak.<\/p>\n

\n\tTo make matters more complicated, I\u2019d always been a stomach sleeper. My whole life I\u2019d slept face down, with a pillow under my chest and my arms splayed out above my head. I was now forced to sleep on my left side only because of how the bag sagged and hung once it started filling up. Lying on my back was out of the question because at that angle, the stoma fired straight up like a geyser and compromised the adhesive seal, causing it to leak down my abdomen.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis had resulted in several nervous breakdowns during my first few weeks back home. I\u2019d wake up in the middle of the night gasping for air, lying in a puddle of sweat, my hair drenched. I\u2019d reach down to discover that the bag was leaking through my pajamas and quietly get out of bed to dispose of the waste, hoping I didn\u2019t wake Sofia. Because I couldn\u2019t control the output, I would often have no other choice but to stand in the shower, lean against the wall, and close my eyes until my body ran out of sludge. The complete loss of muscle mass in my lats and back, as well as the rest of my body, compounded my sleep issues.<\/p>\n

\n\tHaving muscle mass was like having pillows attached to my skeleton: Not only did it make lying down more comfortable, it held my spine in place. Since I\u2019d lost so much of it and was sleeping in unnatural positions, I began to have neck and spinal problems. And since my body was suffering from all manner of internal and external inflammation, I\u2019d wake up at night shivering cold in a pool of sweat. I learned to lay towels down beneath me and change them out each time I woke up.<\/p>\n

\n\tSofia couldn\u2019t bring herself to congratulate me on landing the biggest role of my career. She\u2019d just watched me die and come back to life through the marvel of modern science, and I think during my illness part of her had begun to adapt to the traumatic thought of living her life without me. Now here I was packing to leave her for an unbelievably high-stakes job that I was in no shape to take. Hard as it was for her to understand, I needed it to survive. The role contained the shred of hope that I might get my life back in some capacity, and I had to believe it was possible.<\/p>\n

\n\tMy job was simple: Be a warrior. When I looked into my eyes in the mirror, there was no fear, just determination. In them, I saw a gaze like Clint Eastwood\u2019s when he played the Man with No Name in Sergio Leone\u2019s Dollars Trilogy or Dirty Harry. That look that told other men that he\u2019d pull the trigger with no hesitation or remorse, the look that always made them back down. I was not afraid to die anymore; death already knew who I was, and that look was in my eyes now. I had fought my illness with every fiber of my being\u2014and then fought some more. I had discovered extra gears within me. I\u2019d gain the weight back, get my digestive system reconnected, lose the bag, and get back to my life. The role was my destiny. I had been removed from one set because of my health, but it wouldn\u2019t happen again.<\/p>\n

\n\tI hated the pity I saw in Sofia\u2019s eyes when she looked at me now. When we first met, she looked up at me with such pride; I would have gone to war and taken over the world for that look. Now all I could see reflected back at me was this sick, pitiful patient. I was determined to see Sofia\u2019s eyes flicker for me the way they used to once again\u2014even if it killed me.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tJoe Manganiello and Sof\u00eda Vergara attend The 22nd Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards at The Shrine Auditorium on January 30, 2016 in Los Angeles, California. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGetty Images<\/p>\n

\n\tI boarded my flight to Heathrow and tried my best to sleep on my side in the pod. I had my blanket pulled up and was starting to doze when I reached down and felt moisture. There was a fucking leak in my ostomy bag, and shit had started to soak my underwear. I got up, carefully holding my shirt away from my body, praying none of the waste got on it, leaving a stain that would smell for the entire flight. I got my backpack from the overhead full of my supplies: a spare ring, the putty, a waste bag to hold the used bag, a fresh ostomy bag, and clean underwear. I\u2019d learned pretty quickly that it was wise to keep clean underwear on hand at all times. I got to the bathroom, peeled my shirt off carefully, and started swapping out the bag. As I removed it, the stoma shot like a cannon, spraying onto the mirror and counter. With lightning reflexes, I grabbed a wad of tissues and plugged it, slowing the flow for the time being. I emptied the full bag into the toilet, then folded it up and put it into the waste bag. While the tissues stuffed into my stoma soaked through, I got the pieces ready and did my best to attach the new bag. Once it was secure, I cleaned the bathroom using the hand soap and paper towels. By the time I was done, I was sweating from the stress and embarrassment even though I was alone in the middle of the night with most of my fellow passengers asleep. Once I had things under control, I changed my underwear, which thankfully was the only article of clothing compromised. Then I took a deep breath and looked in the mirror. \u201cYou\u2019re a tough son of a bitch,\u201d I said. \u201cYou\u2019re a bad dude. I love you.\u201d I nodded silently to myself in affirmation, then headed back to my seat to try to sleep. I was going to need it.<\/p>\n

\n\tI got to my hotel the next morning and had the entire day to get settled. I thought long and hard about how to get through the fitting. I planned to stop eating in the late afternoon and not eat again until after it was over, giving me about eighteen hours to allow my digestive system to clear. I knew the suits DC used for their superheroes were three to four layers, starting with a skintight spandex bodysuit, a second layer of heavier latex material, a layer of armor, and sometimes another layer over that. I had to be absolutely sure nothing would come out in the bag while I wore the suit because under that degree of compression it would probably explode. I was appropriately empty by morning when I met with the wardrobe staff. They handed me the tight spandex base layer and just stood there. This was not unusual for a fitting, but I couldn\u2019t undress for an audience without revealing my scars and the bag. I acted demure, which, given their expressions, clearly seemed a little curious coming from Alcide the naked werewolf and Big Dick Richie the stripper. I smiled, shrugged my shoulders, and held up the spandex, as if to say, \u201cAre you all just going to stand there?\u201d They snapped to attention, embarrassed, and filed out. I took off my sweatpants, which I\u2019d gotten used to wearing exclusively because it was impossible to wear jeans or pants with stiff waistbands due to the location of the ostomy bag. I confirmed that it was still empty\u2014so far, so good\u2014then I slipped into the bodysuit and called everyone back in. They helped me into the next layer, made of thick, heavy, contoured latex, and began strapping shiny chrome armor on me. They tried a number of different knee pieces, arm pieces, you name it, to replicate Deathstroke\u2019s look in the video game. Once we settled on the configuration, the pieces would be painted the character\u2019s trademark navy blue and orange.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe fitting went as smoothly as could be, but apparently that wasn\u2019t the end of the day\u2019s journey. They informed me that they also needed to create a full 3D body scan image of me using 256 cameras mounted around a podium. The scan would be used to make a replica mannequin of my body, which they\u2019d use like a dress form to tailor and fit my suit over the next month before we shot my scene. There was just one problem: \u201cWe noticed you\u2019re wearing black underwear,\u201d one of them said. \u201cThe cameras don\u2019t like black, so we found these for you.\u201d They handed me a pair of tiny bright blue briefs sized for a man much smaller than me with, shall we say, a very different personal style from my own. I stared at them and began to panic. There was no way in hell that little thing would fit me, let alone hide the bag.<\/p>\n

\n\tFrom BLOODLINES: A Memoir by Joe Manganiello. Copyright \u00a9 2026. Reprinted by permission of Avid Reader Press, an Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc. Printed by permission. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Joe Manganiello collapsed in pain on the set of Six in Wilmington, North Carolina, in 2016, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":920848,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,8861,15289,447,134,488722,41799,44999],"class_list":["post-920847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-batman","tag-ben-affleck","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-joe-manganiello","tag-memoir","tag-sofia-vergara"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=920847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/920848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=920847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=920847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=920847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}