a day ago
6357
69
Posted On: October 14th 2026, 06:30 pm
Tagged Users:
Actor Joe Manganiello Releases “Bloodlines,” a Memoir of His Armenian Genocide Survivor Roots & Secret Health Battle 🇦🇲
➖➖➖
Actor Joe Manganiello released “Bloodlines,” a memoir about a secret 7-year health battle that led him to his family’s survival of the Armenian Genocide, on Tuesday, October 13. Avid Reader Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, published the 320-page book.
Manganiello played the werewolf Alcide Herveaux on HBO’s “True Blood,” Big Dick Richie in “Magic Mike” and “Magic Mike XXL,” and Flash Thompson in 2002’s “Spider-Man.” The illness was kept from the public until the book was announced.
The publisher writes that a series of autoimmune illnesses hit his skin, thyroid, eyes, lungs and digestive system. Doctors could not fully explain his condition. Coverage ahead of the release reported multiple near-death experiences and a life-saving organ amputation.
“It was the most brutally difficult time of my life, one I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, but also my greatest adventure,” Manganiello said in a statement to PEOPLE.
Looking for answers, he turned to shamanic practices, pagan rituals, ancient myths and old family records. That search led him to his Armenian ancestry and the inherited trauma he carried.
His maternal great-grandmother, Terviz “Rose” Darakjian, survived the Armenian Genocide in 1915. Turkish soldiers shot her husband and 7 of her 8 children dead and shot her too. She lived by pretending to be dead.
With a bullet still lodged in her body, she strapped her infant to her back and swam across the Euphrates River. The baby drowned in the crossing. She then lived in a cave with other refugees until German soldiers picked her up.
Manganiello told her story on the PBS series “Finding Your Roots,” hosted by Henry Louis Gates Jr., in an episode that aired February 7, 2023.
He has 2 Armenian words tattooed on his forearms: “Հրեշտակ” (angel), which he showed in August 2023, and “Բախտ” (luck), which he showed in April 2025.
Read the full article in the post above and on our website.
Follow @zartonkmedia, your home for all things Armenian. 🇦🇲
➖➖➖
Actor Joe Manganiello released “Bloodlines,” a memoir about a secret 7-year health battle that led him to his family’s survival of the Armenian Genocide, on Tuesday, October 13. Avid Reader Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, published the 320-page book.
Manganiello played the werewolf Alcide Herveaux on HBO’s “True Blood,” Big Dick Richie in “Magic Mike” and “Magic Mike XXL,” and Flash Thompson in 2002’s “Spider-Man.” The illness was kept from the public until the book was announced.
The publisher writes that a series of autoimmune illnesses hit his skin, thyroid, eyes, lungs and digestive system. Doctors could not fully explain his condition. Coverage ahead of the release reported multiple near-death experiences and a life-saving organ amputation.
“It was the most brutally difficult time of my life, one I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, but also my greatest adventure,” Manganiello said in a statement to PEOPLE.
Looking for answers, he turned to shamanic practices, pagan rituals, ancient myths and old family records. That search led him to his Armenian ancestry and the inherited trauma he carried.
His maternal great-grandmother, Terviz “Rose” Darakjian, survived the Armenian Genocide in 1915. Turkish soldiers shot her husband and 7 of her 8 children dead and shot her too. She lived by pretending to be dead.
With a bullet still lodged in her body, she strapped her infant to her back and swam across the Euphrates River. The baby drowned in the crossing. She then lived in a cave with other refugees until German soldiers picked her up.
Manganiello told her story on the PBS series “Finding Your Roots,” hosted by Henry Louis Gates Jr., in an episode that aired February 7, 2023.
He has 2 Armenian words tattooed on his forearms: “Հրեշտակ” (angel), which he showed in August 2023, and “Բախտ” (luck), which he showed in April 2025.
Read the full article in the post above and on our website.
Follow @zartonkmedia, your home for all things Armenian. 🇦🇲
Comments (69)
3 hours agodatev267
😢❤️😢 I am in tears....thanks for sharing...wish you recovery physically and spiritually...still .... enjoy your life
4 hours agoana_mansour1
Many thanks and blessings to you. May the good Lord keep you in the palms of his hands🙏🏻❤️
5 hours agoclaudickson
He should mention in his book how he let go of the love of his life because he wanted to have children, children he has not yet been able to have with his current partner.
Load More
More posts
