Flaawsome Talk with Kjersti Flaa - Sofia Vergara is FUMING !! And now Tom Cruise is dragged into it ...

00:00:00.000 Joe Mangianello's memoir is out and Sofia Vergara is fuming.

00:00:09.660 Hi and welcome to Flossom Talk.

00:00:11.600 I'm Sashdi Floor, journalist, Hollywood truth teller and your voice of reason in a town

00:00:16.100 built on delusion.

00:00:18.580 Okay, so is Joe Mangianello a narcissist?

00:00:22.120 His ex-wife Sofia Vergara certainly thinks so.

00:00:26.600 So yesterday he released his memoir, Bloodline, which is mostly about how he battled with a horrific illness and kept it a secret for seven years.

00:00:39.700 But he also talks about their marriage and Sofia Vergara is not happy about it.

00:00:46.280 also he's dragging Tom Cruise into it claiming that Tom was jealous because Tom Cruise also

00:00:53.340 used to date his ex-wife Sophia and Joe thinks that Tom's pettiness is the reason why he lost

00:01:02.200 opportunities in Hollywood okay so let's look at what really happened here Joe Mangianello

00:01:08.960 got married to sofia vergara in november of 2015 they married in palm beach florida and everyone

00:01:18.380 was like wow look at this beautiful couple that are so in love they kept gushing about each other

00:01:24.780 in the press how in love they were then just five months after they got married joe collapsed on the

00:01:31.580 sets of a tv show called sixth and he was rushed to the hospital and he could not continue to act

00:01:38.840 in this military drama, and he was replaced with actor Walton Goggins. And that is when he

00:01:45.980 discovered that he had this serious autoimmune disorder. In 2016, just a year after they got

00:01:52.720 married, Joe had to undergo a 10-hour surgery. And during the surgery, the doctors realized that

00:01:59.940 they had to make some serious choices about Joe's body. And since he wasn't able to make those

00:02:05.960 himself they called his then wife Sophia and asked her what to do. She authorized the doctors back

00:02:13.300 then to remove his large intestines and that left Joe with an ostomy bag. He credits his wife in his

00:02:20.380 memoir for saving his life at this point. He also decided to keep his struggles a secret although

00:02:27.600 it did come out that he had done this surgery and Sophia was also asked about that on a red carpet

00:02:33.080 appearance how is he can you give us an update on him yeah he's great he's doing great he's good

00:02:36.920 yeah his health is okay yeah he's okay he had a little you know problem but no he's good

00:02:41.480 yes as you could see sofia was like saying that oh everything's fine he's doing great

00:02:46.740 which he obviously wasn't so in the book he explains how he was suffering for seven years

00:02:52.780 with this illness and that he lost so much weight he was unrecognizable he could barely walk and

00:03:00.120 this is where his criticism of Sophia comes in. I hated the pity I saw in Sophia's eyes when she

00:03:06.620 looked at me now. When we first met, she looked up at me with such pride. He's saying that she wasn't

00:03:13.360 really there for him the way he had expected her to be there for him. He said that at one time he

00:03:20.580 asked for a hug and she didn't want to hug him. He also says in the book that she was ridiculing

00:03:27.440 his little chihuahua. He adopted a chihuahua called Bubbles. I was just looking at his Instagram. He

00:03:33.040 has a whole Instagram for his dog Bubbles. He really loves Bubbles and he's claiming that

00:03:38.180 Sofia Vergara was making fun of his relationship with this dog who he also says that basically

00:03:44.540 saved his life because he was at the darkest in his life when he got this dog and he really needed

00:03:50.700 that unconditional love. She watched me transform from the strongest man she'd ever known to a

00:03:55.800 skeleton who could barely move on his own. She'd been preparing for me to die and was clearly

00:04:00.420 deeply traumatized by her fear of my impending abandonment via death. Now in July of 2023,

00:04:07.480 Joe and Sophie announced their divorce. They were saying then that they still loved each other

00:04:13.500 and cared for each other and Joe's divorce filing cited irreconcilable differences

00:04:19.580 without publicly detailing what those differences really were.

00:04:24.700 So then the next year in 2024, Sophia came out to El Pai

00:04:30.200 and said that the real reason was because Joe wanted children.

00:04:35.300 He was younger than her and he wanted children and she didn't want to go there.

00:04:39.920 She was 50, I think at the time, and she was like,

00:04:42.260 I was not ready to have more children and she already has a son.

00:04:45.920 Then Joe comes out later in 2024 and says that that is not true.

00:04:51.600 He said that they had tried to start a family together during their first year and a half together.

00:04:57.880 According to him, they discussed children early on in their relationship,

00:05:01.820 and he promised he wouldn't leave if it didn't happen.

00:05:06.200 He said they grew apart and objected to being portrayed as a husband

00:05:09.800 who pressured her into motherhood or threatened to leave her.

00:05:14.640 So at this point, we don't know who's really telling the truth.

00:05:17.720 In his memoir, though, that he released yesterday, Joe says that he gave up fatherhood because

00:05:23.700 of his fear of dying.

00:05:26.040 He thought he was going to die from this illness, and he didn't want to leave Sophia with a

00:05:32.000 child, especially because they were discussing donor eggs, and he wouldn't, and he didn't

00:05:37.440 want to put Sophia in a situation where she had to raise a child that wasn't her biologically.

00:05:43.540 Okay.

00:05:44.080 In his book, he also alleges that their marriage became emotionally empty.

00:05:49.740 And he said that Sofia did not congratulate him

00:05:52.300 when he was offered the role of his life as the villain in Batman.

00:05:57.460 Sofia couldn't bring herself to congratulate me

00:05:59.640 on landing the biggest role in my career.

00:06:01.180 She just watched me die and come back to life

00:06:03.860 through the marvel of modern science.

00:06:05.680 And right now, Joe is on a tour promoting his book.

00:06:09.620 And he was interviewed by Gayle King yesterday.

00:06:11.980 When I watched this interview, I felt like Gail had an agenda already.

00:06:16.900 She really put pressure on him in regards to the things he said about Sofia Vergara,

00:06:22.400 basically saying that everyone likes Sofia and you're claiming that she didn't want to hug you and people have a problem with that.

00:06:29.360 You write something very poignantly that you're going through hell, basically, in a lot of pain.

00:06:33.940 And you said, I just asked her for a hug and she wouldn't give me that.

00:06:36.920 Now, reading that about Sofia Vergara is very hard for people who know her, appreciate her, like her.

00:06:42.940 It's hard to understand why she would seemingly be that callous to you.

00:06:48.380 The trauma and the pain affected everyone in my life, including me, in ways that you can't predict.

00:06:55.740 Yeah, and Joe really dodged that question.

00:06:58.120 He didn't want to respond about the fact that he said that Sofia didn't want to hug him.

00:07:04.460 He kept saying that, you know, this book isn't about my marriage to Sofia.

00:07:08.640 This book is about my struggle with this illness.

00:07:12.340 Then when this information came out that Sofia didn't hug him or show him enough support during this struggle,

00:07:19.260 Sofia came out on social media and took a dig at him in a very subtle way.

00:07:25.020 This is such an interesting way for celebrities to respond, by the way,

00:07:28.720 by reposting something that someone else posted

00:07:32.080 because then they didn't exactly post it themselves.

00:07:36.120 So Sophia's son actually posted this

00:07:39.200 and this made headlines everywhere a couple of days ago.

00:07:42.780 So this post is basically explaining

00:07:45.520 what a good man is and what a narcissistic man is.

00:07:49.760 And a good man sets boundaries,

00:07:51.700 a narcissistic man gaslighted,

00:07:54.600 good men apologize, narcissistic.

00:07:56.600 narcissistic men blame shift good men tell the truth narcissistic men lie and so on and so on

00:08:04.040 and Sophia's son says here that remember kids when dealing with a narcissist it doesn't matter

00:08:08.880 how much you do for them because they will resent you for it and nothing will never be enough

00:08:13.620 and they all and they're always somehow try to paint you as the bad guy so then Sophia leaves

00:08:21.200 a clapping hand and reposts this and it's pretty obvious that this is meant for joe that she

00:08:29.140 believes that he is a narcissist the evening before this happened sofia reposted something

00:08:36.940 that tom brady said on his on his instagram he said the ability to laugh at oneself is probably

00:08:44.880 the highest form of intelligence. The inability to laugh at oneself is a sure sign you're dealing

00:08:51.780 with an idiot. And then he said underneath, life's too short to be serious. I think this was a 1.00

00:08:59.440 response from Sophia, who was accused by Joe in the book that she had ridiculed his little dog

00:09:07.000 Bubble that he loved so much and that he claimed saved his life because he got that unconditional

00:09:12.900 love and sofia said in interviews that they were getting this dog together there are interview

00:09:17.940 clips of that but then the dog decided that he wanted to be closer to joe and she was just making

00:09:26.380 fun of that she was supposed to be my dog yes and she arrived to the house and she i don't know she

00:09:33.480 thought that she was for joe and that's all she wants to do she hates me and that brings me to

00:09:38.580 what Rob Shooter said a few days ago. He said that Joe Manganiello is speaking out about feeling

00:09:44.620 ridiculed during his marriage to Sofia Vergara. His allegations brought back a memory I have never

00:09:50.760 forgotten. For years, I was a regular on the fourth hour of today with Cassie Lee Gifford

00:09:57.400 and Hoda Kotb. Every celebrity topic was approved in advance. One morning, we discussed Sofia's

00:10:05.640 lavish birthday party. I made a throwaway joke questioning who had paid for it. Basically

00:10:13.040 assuming it was Sofia herself because she is the bigger star. And then he said Joe's representatives

00:10:21.140 went ballistic. They called today the show to complain. Shortly afterward, a senior producer

00:10:29.320 who no longer works there took me out for drinks and delivered a lecture. Yes, so I find it

00:10:35.140 interesting that Rob Shooter had an experience like this with Joe or with Joe's people. You

00:10:41.680 never know if it comes from the person directly or if it comes from the people surrounding the

00:10:46.840 person. But anyways, I found this clip of Ryan Seacrest interviewing Sofia Vergara on the red

00:10:52.840 carpet where she talks about how much Joe makes fun of her accent. I don't know what show I was

00:10:59.200 watching where Joe was doing an impersonation of you. He does that all the time. He talks to me

00:11:03.900 with my accent all the time he's not here today he couldn't come with me he started filming six

00:11:09.740 a tv show that he's doing so he had to leave this morning how do you think he does with the

00:11:13.580 impersonation of you he does it great does it okay yeah i laugh all the time passes the test yeah

00:11:18.020 when he wants to tell me something but he said it in my accent so i don't i can't you know be mean

00:11:22.260 so yeah i don't know where the truth lays here if joe takes himself so seriously that he's not

00:11:28.640 able to laugh about himself and that he's just allowed to make fun of Sophia. But on the other

00:11:33.980 hand, Joe was dealing with a very serious disease. And when you're in the middle of that, maybe it's

00:11:39.360 not so easy to make fun of yourself or to make fun of the situation. At the same time, he was

00:11:45.980 struggling in his career. It seems like he's talking a lot about parts that he didn't get.

00:11:52.000 And then he's watching his wife, who was so much more famous than him. She was a huge star after

00:11:57.760 modern family and she was at every red carpet. She got a lot of good offers while Joe was struggling

00:12:04.080 in secret with his disease and it seems like also from his book that he had difficulties

00:12:09.600 getting his real break and this is where the book gets really interesting. I haven't read the book

00:12:15.700 by the way, I have to put that out there. I've just read about the book in other outlets and we have to

00:12:21.120 keep in mind when someone releases a memoir, journalists who are reviewing the book will just

00:12:27.160 look for little nuggets of good headlines. What is a good headline here? His struggle of course

00:12:33.480 which is a big theme in the book but also everyone will be looking for things he says about his wife

00:12:39.400 for controversies for scandals and those are the things that makes headlines. So I'm referring to

00:12:47.960 those kind of stories here as I said I haven't had the time to read the book yet but anyways

00:12:52.500 this is kind of bizarre this whole thing that he's saying that he spoke to a shaman in cuba who said

00:13:01.340 that someone might have cursed him or someone might have put a curse on sofia it says here that

00:13:07.500 he recounts a cuban shaman telling him that someone from sofia's past had cursed him in new

00:13:13.400 orleans and then joe connects the description of her former fiance nick lobe that sofia was with

00:13:21.020 when he met Sophia the first time so I think Joe is suggesting that Nick was not happy about that

00:13:29.220 breakup and I mean I understand that because it took one month after Sophia broke up with Nick

00:13:35.560 until she was dating Joe so who knows if there was any overlap there I'm not gonna speculate in

00:13:41.360 anything like that but in his book joe thinks that someone or nick probably put a curse on sophia

00:13:51.800 and he said that he went through all of her exes that he knew about and immediately thought of the

00:13:57.280 guy she was with right before me and he says here in the book that at one point a very close friend

00:14:02.400 of mine who happens to have top level contacts in the private security world offered me the

00:14:07.620 opportunity, no questions asked, to have this guy snatched off the street, blindfolded,

00:14:13.740 hugged tight, thrown in the back of a van, and driven deep into a wooded area.

00:14:18.180 And he also said in the book that this person would first be warned, then beaten with an

00:14:21.920 inch of his life, and left to fend for himself in the wild.

00:14:26.140 And then he said that the protective part of me did not dismiss the offer right away.

00:14:31.460 After thinking it through, the spiritual part of me won out, fearing karmic retribution,

00:14:38.100 either in this life in the form of prison or something worse in the next.

00:14:43.820 I think that is a bit troubling.

00:14:46.060 I don't know, because he got a shaman to tell him this.

00:14:50.200 He also says here that Nick was a trust fund baby and that he had gotten into a horrendous

00:14:56.140 car wreck while they were together and broke almost every bone in his body.

00:15:00.340 He spent a lot of time in the hospital just like I did.

00:15:04.720 So yeah, it seems like Sofia has been through a lot.

00:15:07.700 Having to support two men, as far as we know, who has been really like near death.

00:15:13.820 But anyways, let's talk about this Tom Cruise story.

00:15:16.520 I found this one really interesting.

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00:17:07.060 and tell them that I sent you. Okay, so let's get back into it. So here's the Tom Cruise part of it

00:17:13.740 So in his book, Joe talks about how he was expected to star in Reacher, but he believes that Tom Cruise blocked him.

00:17:25.760 I forgot about this, but Sofia Vergara dated Tom Cruise briefly in 2005.

00:17:33.460 That was just before he had met Katie Holmes.

00:17:35.980 and according to Joe they broke up because Sophia didn't want to take the Scientology

00:17:42.920 e-meter test. Good for you Sophia for not doing that but it seems like here that Joe believed

00:17:50.340 that Tom might still have a thing for Sophia and he wanted to punish him for it. So in his book

00:17:56.780 Joe is talking about two missed opportunities that involved Tom Cruise. First the movie. He says that

00:18:05.160 the director, Ed Zwick, really loved his audition to play the villain in Jack Reacher, Never Go

00:18:10.900 Back, but told him that Tom Cruise would never approve because of Joe's size. And by that he

00:18:17.740 means that Joe is six foot five and Tom Cruise is like five foot something. He is short. He's

00:18:26.140 shorter than me. I've been next to Tom Cruise. He's a short guy and I think he has a lot of

00:18:30.920 insecurities about that. And that's why he always wears little heels when he's on the red carpet.

00:18:35.540 But anyways, he missed out on that role because apparently, according to him, Tom Cruise felt

00:18:42.820 like Joe actually looked much more like Jack Reacher than himself. And if he was playing the

00:18:48.560 villain, it will be confusion there, especially maybe because everyone would realize how short

00:18:53.740 Tom Cruise is. I don't know. Anyways, then there was an opportunity to play Jack Reacher in a TV

00:19:00.520 series about Jack Reacher. And Joe says that Skydance, who produced the TV show, really wanted

00:19:08.760 him to play Reacher. But Amazon, who actually bought the TV show, wasn't quite sure. So the

00:19:17.480 boss over at Amazon, Jennifer Stock, said that, hey, you can't just make this decision to hire

00:19:23.400 Joe Mangionello for this part without me being involved I want to have more of a say in the

00:19:31.520 audition process and I want more people to choose from and at that point Joe had spent six months

00:19:38.560 auditioning for this role and it really broke his heart when the role was given to someone else

00:19:45.520 it ended up with Alan Richen actually getting the role and in his book Joe Mangionello points to the

00:19:53.120 fact that Tom Cruise was producing the TV series and he believes that Tom Cruise is still bitter

00:20:00.300 about Sofia Vergara for not wanting to date him because she didn't want to take the Scientology

00:20:05.540 test so that's why he was punishing Joe all of this is obviously speculations from Joe's side

00:20:13.140 so I don't know what I believe here let me know what you think do you think Tom Cruise would do

00:20:17.700 something like that I mean nothing surprises me anymore but I also think it's a little bit

00:20:22.380 far-fetched, especially about the TV series. I do believe that Tom didn't want anyone that looked 1.00

00:20:28.400 more masculine than him to play the villain in the movie, maybe, but I'm not sure about this TV

00:20:33.520 series. Anyways, I'm not taking side in this feud between Sophia and Joe at all, because I feel like

00:20:41.700 on one side, I really empathize with Joe, who's gone through this horrific experience of this

00:20:48.500 illness that has cost him so much pain and suffering took my body away took the whole

00:20:53.800 thing down all of it the body the career the relationship the public image all of it all of

00:21:00.100 it was gone you're nothing you're nothing but a spirit housed in this shell and that's it and on

00:21:06.660 the other hand i do understand that sophia doesn't think it's great that her ex-husband all of a

00:21:13.280 sudden wants to share a lot of details, intimate details, about their private life together. And

00:21:19.580 especially because of the things that he said about her in the book. And that doesn't make her

00:21:23.920 look like a very good person. I also think there is a little bit of bitterness here from Joe's side

00:21:29.900 because Sophia has been more successful than him. But he knew that when he married her that she was

00:21:36.600 already a big star and he wasn't such a big star. So even though that he might not admit that to

00:21:43.020 himself. Maybe also that was something that he struggled with in this marriage. And he does touch

00:21:49.460 upon another big disappointment in this book when he was approached by Ben Affleck to play the big

00:21:55.660 villain in the Batman movie. That was in January of 2017. He went to do the fitting and everything

00:22:03.100 for Deathstroke. But then Ben Affleck dropped out as a director. Robert Pattinson was attached to

00:22:10.620 the project but then the movie was just shelved and according to joe that would have been his

00:22:17.060 biggest break in his career and he also said in the book that when that happened sophia was not

00:22:23.380 supportive of him i also believe that sophia maybe wasn't that supportive of him taking on a big role

00:22:29.640 like that when he was so sick so there's that side of the story too so who knows what really

00:22:35.240 happened here. I think it's never a really great idea to invite the public into your private life

00:22:42.060 or your personal life. And this is what happens when you release a memoir. People will always

00:22:47.720 look for the juicy parts. Where's the headline here? Let's get all the tea. Anyway, that's it

00:22:54.660 for me today, you guys. Thank you so much for watching. I hope you enjoyed this episode and

00:22:59.100 thanks for your tips. Please keep sending them. I did get a lot of feedback from my Kelly Clarkson

00:23:05.740 episode yesterday and I just saw that there is some footage from inside that store in Brooklyn now

00:23:12.600 where everyone basically looked like they rolled out of bed and put on hoodies and a cap. So I'm

00:23:20.000 not sure about the part where she said that that guy was looking her up and down because she looked

00:23:26.060 like she was poor because everyone else in that store that day looked exactly the same way but

00:23:32.380 anyways if you haven't subscribed yet please do and hit the notification bell so you never

00:23:37.280 miss an episode of Flawsome Talk and I'll see you soon. Bye!

Flaawsome Talk with Kjersti Flaa - October 14, 2026

Sofia Vergara is FUMING !! And now Tom Cruise is dragged into it ...

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