Caitlin O’Connor has revealed how she and her fiancé, Joe Manganiello, marked their three-year anniversary, just days before the actor’s highly anticipated memoir examines his split from ex-wife Sofia Vergara.
The 37-year-old actress, who met the 49-year-old True Blood star at an HBO after-party in 2023, surprised him with a custom arcade. The couple then traveled to Las Vegas last week to attend a Metallica concert.
‘I got him a one-of-a-kind, custom arcade from Phantom Arcades with a custom One Piece LEGO front, photos of us around the world and 13,000 games,’ she told E! News.
The couple, who became engaged in 2025, also attended the first two Metallica shows of the band’s residency at The Sphere in Las Vegas alongside Matthew McConaughey and his wife, Camila Alves.
O’Connor said they made time for desserts at Black Tap and managed to watch their favorite team, the Pittsburgh Steelers, beat the Las Vegas Raiders 32-13.
The couple’s Pittsburgh roots will also feature in their wedding plans. O’Connor said she is personally creating the celebration’s cookie table, a longstanding tradition in the city.
Joe Manganiello, 49, and his 37-year-old fiancée Caitlin O’Connor celebrated their three-year anniversary in Las Vegas last week; the couple are pictured in Vegas in October
The anniversary celebration came shortly before the release of Manganiello’s memoir, which details his split from ex-wife Sofia Vergara, 54; Vergara is pictured in September at the Daytime Beauty Awards in Los Angeles
The wedding will also feature Manganiello’s chihuahua, Bubbles. The Magic Mike star adopted the dog from Dogs Without Borders in 2019 while he was dealing with an autoimmune disease.
The anniversary festivities took place only days before the October 13 release of Manganiello’s memoir, Bloodlines.
Previously published excerpts have offered insight into Manganiello’s health struggles and the pressure they placed on his marriage to Vergara, 54. In one passage, he claims she allegedly ‘refuse[d] to hug him’ even when he pleaded with her.
In the latest excerpt, Manganiello wrote that Vergara authorized doctors to remove part of his intestines during emergency surgery in 2016, a decision he says ultimately saved his life.
Manganiello and Vergara ended their marriage in July 2023 after seven years together. He has spoken publicly about the painful autoimmune condition that left him suicidal.
Describing the illness to People, Manganiello said, ‘I was getting sicker and sicker.’ He compared the symptoms to a ‘gremlin in the control room of my body flipping switches.’
In a new Bloodlines extract obtained by the publication on Thursday, the actor recalled Vergara being ‘at his bedside’ in hospital as his condition continued to deteriorate.
Before undergoing surgery, Manganiello experienced severe abdominal pain, rashes, fevers, headaches and rectal bleeding. He said the illness caused him to lose 60 pounds over the following seven years.
O’Connor presented Manganiello with a custom arcade before the couple traveled to Las Vegas for Metallica and attended a Pittsburgh Steelers game; they are pictured at a Steelers game in September
O’Connor, who is also from Pittsburgh, said she is designing the wedding cookie table, a local tradition; she is pictured in 2025
The couple met at an HBO after-party in 2023 and became engaged in 2025; they are pictured in New York in December 2025
Manganiello described the emergency procedure as a ‘life-saving organ amputation’ and said Vergara made the decision to proceed with the drastic operation while he was in surgery.
Our News Outlet has contacted representatives for Vergara and Manganiello for comment and has yet to hear back.
This comes after Manganiello made incendiary claims about Vergara’s alleged behavior during his seven-year battle with an autoimmune disease.
He alleged the union became ‘devoid of any emotionality whatsoever’ as his illness took its toll.
In an excerpt of the memoir obtained by People on Wednesday, Manganiello said his health began to go downhill shortly after his 2015 wedding to Vergara.
Manganiello, who believes he is ‘lucky to be alive,’ said pain medication usually prescribed for Crohn’s disease and colitis did not work and he was ‘forced’ to turn to hydrocodone pills, fentanyl patches and marijuana, despite being sober for 13 years.
In the tome, Manganiello said his pain was so severe, he considered taking his own life in 2019, leading him to adopt his chihuahua, Bubbles.
Manganiello claimed that as he desperately searched for treatment, his marriage became ‘devoid of any emotionality whatsoever’ and alleged Vergara ‘refused to hug him even when he begged.’
In his upcoming memoir, Bloodlines, Manganiello made incendiary claims about Vergara’s alleged behavior during his seven-year battle with an autoimmune disease; Seen in 2023
Manganiello claimed his marriage became ‘devoid of any emotionality whatsoever’ and alleged Vergara ‘refused to hug him even when he begged.’ Vergara announced their divorce in 2023
In the tome, Manganiello said his pain was so severe, he considered taking his own life in 2019, leading him to adopt his chihuahua, Bubbles; Seen with Bubbles
He also claimed Vergara ridiculed him over Bubbles.
‘I had to give my gun away because I kept thinking about it, and then the dog came. I went from being the patient to the caretaker,’ he said.
Manganiello also again refuted Vergara’s prior claims to the Spanish publication El País that she and Manganiello called it quits because he wanted kids and she did not.
He claimed his illness led him to giving up starting a family with Vergara after failed IVF attempts, which led them to consider egg donors, with the actor saying he ‘didn’t want to die and leave Vergara with a child who wasn’t biologically hers.’
Vergara announced her divorce from Manganiello in July 2023.
Only two days after announcing their split, Manganiello filed for divorce and listed their date of separation as July 2.
The reason for the end of their marriage was cited as ‘irreconcilable differences.’
However, in January 2024, Vergara told El País that she and Manganiello called it quits because he wanted kids and she did not. She is a mom to son Manolo, 35, who she welcomed during her first marriage to Joe Gonzalez, which ended in 1993.
‘I didn’t want to be an old mom,’ she said. ‘I feel it’s not fair to the baby. I respect whoever does it, but that’s not for me anymore.’
She continued: ‘I had a son at 19, who is now 32, and I’m ready to be a grandmother, not a mother. So, if love comes along, he has to come with [his own] children.’
Manganiello later disputed those claims in a Men’s Journal article in July 2024.
‘There’s been a lot said in the press about me wanting a family. That’s simply not true,’ he told the publication. ‘We did try to have a family for the first year and a half.’
Manganiello also said he is open to starting a family with his fiancee O’Connor, writing, ‘If that’s meant for me. For seven years I thought I was going to be dead the next week. The world has opened back up to me.’
Manganiello credited his recovery to seeking alternative treatment – visiting a Santa Monica shaman, who told him generational trauma was to blame due to his great-grandmother losing nine of her children in the Armenian genocide.
He is now off medication and no longer in pain after undergoing surgery to reconnect his digestive tract.
Manganiello’s memoir Bloodlines is set to hit the bookstores on October 13
In June, Manganiello first revealed the debilitating ‘deadly mystery illness’ that afflicted him in recent years and led to a ‘life-saving organ amputation.’
In an Instagram video, the Magic Mike actor shared that the treatments he was prescribed for the illness, which he has not yet disclosed, had their own ‘brutal side effects.’
He also clarified just how private he kept his illness, saying that he ‘suffered in silence, battling a deadly mystery illness’ while only sharing the details with a small group of people closest to him.
Manganiello battled crushing uncertainty, as he was left without answers about what set off his health issues despite seeing ‘the best doctors in the world.’
‘All their attempts to treat it with high-powered biological drugs only exacerbated my symptoms and then unlocked a host of brutal side effects that winded up plaguing me for years,’ he said.
If you or someone you know needs help, please call or text the confidential 24/7 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline in the US on 988. There is also an online chat available at 988lifeline.org
