Joe Manganiello reveals massive tattoo after years spent battling mystery illness
Joe Manganiello has revealed a massive new tattoo he got to cover some of the scars from his seven-year battle with a mystery illness.
The Magic Mike actor, 49, showed off the ink in a series of photos posted to Instagram on Tuesday, including shots of the initial line work, early shading, and the finished colour tattoo of an eastern dragon.
Actor Joe Manganiello revealed this huge tattoo covering scars from his seven-year health battle. Instagram/@joemanganiello
Manganiello paired the photos with an emotional caption alluding to his health woes and his recently released memoir, Bloodlines.
“In chapter four [of Bloodlines], I related my struggle with the illness to my body sending out knights to fight a (western) dragon that didn’t exist,” he wrote.
“The soldiers would then punch holes throughout my body when they couldn’t find an enemy.”
“The idea to cover my surgery scars with my first tattoo, a three-foot dragon down my right side, was my effort to take back what little agency I felt that I had,” he continued.
“And to signal to my body to stop attacking the dragon… because the (eastern) dragon was me.”
The dragons in his caption are metaphors for his mystery illness, which doctors tried to treat with surgery and other interventions, and himself.
Last week, Manganiello revealed new details about the seven-year health battle he fought, largely in secret.
Manganiello said the dragon represented himself. Instagram/@joemanganiello
Joe Manganiello and Sofia Vergara were married for eight years. Getty
Strange symptoms including debilitating abdominal pain, blistering rashes, headaches and fatigue started shortly after his 2015 wedding to Sofia Vergara and continued for more than a year.
Manganiello underwent multiple colonoscopies before having emergency surgery in 2016, after which his weight plummeted.
“I went into the hospital for two months straight and, at the end of my stay, they wound up having to remove my entire large intestine to save my life,” he told CBS Mornings recently.
“They had split me open. My entire large intestine had turned to pus, and it was about to explode.
“They took it out, and the surgery left me with an ostomy bag. And in the wake of that, I lost 60 pounds in two weeks. I couldn’t walk. My eye went cross-eyed. I lost my voice. I had five catheters.”
Manganiello shared this image from after his large intestine amputation. Instagram/@joemanganiello
He also dealt with a multitude of skin conditions during his health battle, but was never given a concrete diagnosis.
Manganiello credited ex-wife Vergara for helping him through his darkest days, though the pair went on to divorce in 2024.
Manganiello is now symptom-free and preparing to marry fiancee Caitlin O’Connor, whom he has been dating since September 2023.
