Not Just Joe Manganiello: Celebs Who Claim Their Diagnosis Ruined Romantic Relationships

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

For many celebrities, a life-changing diagnosis didn't deepen their relationship with their partner. Instead, they found that their health issue further underlined the existing issues in their relationship or was the catalyst for driving them further apart. Some celebrities have said the exhaustion from their health condition changed their personality and ultimately affected their day-to-day life with their partner. Others have said that their partner was the one who drifted from them due to the exhaustion that came with being a caregiver or from watching them deal with the symptoms of their condition. 

By being candid about their experiences, these celebrities highlighted how a health diagnosis can influence relationship dynamics, which isn't a frequently discussed topic. On the one hand, caring for an ill partner brings its own set of challenges. To give one example, a 2025 integrative review in Home Health Care Management & Practice found that spousal caregivers commonly had anxiety and depression. Functional and cognitive decline were the two most common links to these mental health conditions. 

On the other hand, it's equally important for someone who is dealing with a longstanding illness to have a supportive spouse. A 2021 systematic review in Frontiers in Psychology sought to summarize research on the effect of dyadic coping on a couple after one of them had been diagnosed with long-term health conditions. Dyadic coping is a process in which a couple tackles stressors as a unit. After analyzing numerous studies, researchers found that dyadic coping was positively associated with physical health, well-being, and overall relationship satisfaction in couples dealing with long-term health conditions. 

In July 2023, Sofía Vergara and Joe Manganiello shared a statement with Page Six announcing they were parting ways after nearly eight years of marriage. Then, in January 2024, the "Modern Family" star told El País that their marriage ended because Manganiello wanted children but she didn't want to be an older parent. However, in his 2026 memoir "Bloodlines," the "Magic Mike" star wrote that there was more going on behind the scenes. 

In an excerpt of the book shared with People, Manganiello wrote that he started experiencing numerous painful symptoms shortly after tying the knot with Vergara in 2015. Due to ulcers in his digestive tract, he developed severe pain that made walking difficult and experienced rectal bleeding. At the time, he also had fatigue, fevers, headaches, and blistering rashes. Although doctors felt Manganiello had an autoimmune disease, they never gave him a formal diagnosis. While doctors tried treating him using the medication for Crohn's and ulcerative colitis, it didn't work. 

As the "Spider-Man" actor grappled with the symptoms, he also had to deal with how his illness affected his marriage. By Manganiello's account, his union with Vergara had "become devoid of any emotionality whatsoever." According to Manganiello, the "Griselda" star poked fun at him for adopting a 5-pound chihuahua. She allegedly also refused to hug him, despite his pleas. Additionally, Manganiello claimed that his condition stripped away his desire to become a father, although the couple did contemplate using an egg donor after several unsuccessful IVF attempts.

Padma Lakshmi's experiences with endometriosis affected her marriage to Salman Rushdie. Speaking to Women's Health in July 2020, the former "Top Chef" host shared that she had been experiencing painful periods since her early teens. However, it wasn't until she turned 36 that she received an official endometriosis diagnosis. By then, the painful condition, in which the outside of the uterus develops tissue similar to the inner lining of the organ, had progressed to stage 4 and required surgery. A year after undergoing the procedure, Lakshmi began to feel incredibly frustrated that a doctor didn't diagnose her with the condition sooner and save her from additional pain. 

Moreover, during a March 2016 appearance on "The Meredith Vieira Show," Lakshmi admitted that the symptoms of her condition also strained her 3-year marriage to Rushdie. "It affects your intimacy and your hormones and every fiber of your body is not wanting to be touched and is not wanting to be close to anyone," Lakshmi explained. The TV personality went into more detail about how her condition affected her relationship with the author in her 2016 memoir "Love, Loss, and What We Ate." 

According to the model, Rushdie called her a "bad investment" due to her endometriosis. She also claimed that he wasn't always sympathetic to her condition, and that he was sarcastically callous toward her when her pain prevented them from having sex. Eventually, she felt she was better off dealing with her condition by herself, without the additional strain of Rushdie's emotions. However, Lakshmi also stressed that her health issues weren't the sole reason for the end of their marriage.

Yolanda Hadid is likely one of the many celebrities you didn't know had Lyme disease, a tick-borne illness that causes varied symptoms depending on its stage. Stage 1 can cause a rash, fever, joint pain, and muscle stiffness, while stage 2 can trigger facial palsy, widespread rashes on the body, neck pain, and irregular heartbeat. If left untreated, the illness can lead to arthritis in the knees and other major joints. Hadid's experiences with Lyme disease not only led to her facing many of these symptoms but also strained her 4-year marriage to David Foster. 

During a December 2015 appearance on "Watch What Happens Live," Hadid said that her illness changed the dynamics of their relationship. Though the "RHOBH" alum didn't go into much detail, she hinted that being a caregiver had proved rather challenging for Foster. Elaborating on how the chronic symptoms of Lyme disease affected their relationship in her 2017 memoir "Believe Me" (via People), Hadid wrote, "I went from being the funny girlfriend who was up for anything and had endless energy to the wife who is too sick to be by his side." She added, "He lost his wingman, his partner in crime, and I fell as if he's starting to get impatient with my recovery." 

Elsewhere in the memoir, the reality TV star wrote that Foster greatly wounded her feelings by telling her that "[her] sick card is up," per E! News. Hadid wrote that she was in absolute disbelief that her then-husband could be so callous after watching her struggle with the condition for years.

In December 2024, Gerry Turner told People that he was in the midst of ironing out issues in his relationship with Theresa Nist when he was diagnosed with Waldenström's macroglobulinemia, an incurable bone marrow cancer. After confronting his mortality, the "Golden Bachelor" alum re-evaluated his priorities and realized that he wanted normalcy, which for him meant more time with his family. Turner detailed how the realization impacted his months-long marriage to Nist, saying, "The importance of finding the way with Theresa was still there, but it became less of a priority." 

The reality TV star said that he still looked back on their short-lived relationship fondly and wished that he "would not have had a diagnosis that so strongly influenced [his] decisions and the direction [he] went." He also notably said the diagnosis likely also factored into Nist's decision to end their union. The pair divorced three months after getting married.

However, Nist denied her now-ex-husband's claims while appearing on the "Almost Famous Podcast" in June 2025. According to Nist, Turner hadn't made his diagnosis seem like a big deal. In fact, Nist recalled Turner telling her that doctors had told him that he was more likely to die of age-related factors rather than cancer. She shared, "We never had a conversation that said, 'Oh my gosh, you're sick. I can't stay with you now.'" Nist stressed that she isn't someone who ends a marriage over a health diagnosis. 

In February 2018, Lena Dunham cemented her place among the ranks of Hollywood millennials who won't stay silent about their health struggles. Penning an essay for Vogue, she detailed how she underwent a hysterectomy at the age of 31 to ease the debilitating pain of endometriosis. While detailing the physical and mental toll of the condition, she also opened up about how it affected her long-standing relationship with Jack Antonoff. 

To start, the "Girls" star wrote that the Bleachers frontman had been incredibly supportive while she dealt with the pain of her condition. However, Dunham still admitted that endometriosis had been partially responsible for the distance between them, writing, "I can feel us growing slowly apart, since life is so determined to display its full complexity right now. I am surly and distant. I offer nothing." Dunham further elaborated on the strains of endometriosis on her relationship with Antonoff in her 2026 memoir "Famesick." According to the Emmy nominee, her then-partner eventually had a hard time dealing with how endometriosis affected so many aspects of their relationship. Allegedly, Antonoff was also frustrated that the condition wasn't responding to treatment.

Dunham detailed how they had the most brutal fight in their relationship about a two weeks after she had a hysterectomy and got candid with him about her dependence on her pain medication. According to Dunham, the fight only got worse when Antonoff flushed her medication down the toilet. Due to the strains of the condition and other unrelated reasons, the couple split after over five years together in December 2017.