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Actor Joe Manganiello recently discovered that his paternal grandfather isn't truly related to him and that his biological grandfather is a Black man of mixed ethnic origin.
Imagine thinking you were Italian all your life, only to discover you were actually the mixed-race kid of a Black man.
Joe Manganiello, who plays Joe in Magic Mike, embarked on a long quest to learn more about his history in an episode of "Finding Your Roots."
And what he discovered terrified him.
The "True Blood" actor discovered that the man he thought was his grandfather WASN'T, and that he isn't even related to any Manganeillos.
Throughout his career, the actor has undoubtedly embraced the "Italian Stallion" reputation.
His genuine biological grandfather is a mixed-race Black man.
The Associated Press reports:
“My family and I had a betting pool of what it is, like what’s so bad that you can’t announce it on the episode?” Manganiello told a TV critics meeting Thursday. Gates informed Manganiello that the man the family believed to be the actor’s paternal grandfather really wasn’t.
“My grandfather was a Black man of mixed race,” said Manganiello, who is white. “That was fascinating.”
As a result, Gates told him, “You are zero percent genetically related to anyone named Manganiello in the world.”
Gates didn’t stop there. The show’s research traced back to the actor’s fifth great-grandfather who was a slave who became free before slavery was abolished in Massachusetts, where Manganiello’s father was born outside of Boston. His father’s family came from Italy.
Manganiello found out his distant relative joined the Continental Army and fought alongside other Blacks for the colonies against the British in units that were non-segregated.
“None of us would have guessed that if we’d had 10 years of guessing,” the actor said. “If Manganiello’s not my last name, what is?”
The research team for the show went as far back as Manganiello's fifth great-grandfather, a slave who became free in Massachusetts before slavery was outlawed there and where Manganiello's father was born outside of Boston.
The origin of his father's family was Italy.
Another enigma connected to his mother was also resolved by researchers.
For the actor and his wife, Colombian-born actress Sofa Vergara, we're sure it was mind-blowing.Manganiello’s maternal great-grandmother was a survivor of the Armenian genocide during World War I in which her husband and seven of her children were killed. She was shot, but played dead and escaped with an eighth child, who later drowned while they traversed the Euphrates River.
Manganiello was told his great-grandmother was incarcerated and met a German officer stationed at the camp. He said she became pregnant by the officer, who later returned to Germany without her. The actor’s aunt had a picture of the man, which later got lost.
“We had nothing to connect us being German other than this,” he said.
The show’s researchers found that the actor’s mother and aunt were the children of the half-German baby.
“That was a really profound moment for me,” he said.
Gates said it took nearly a year to uncover the ancestry in part because the Turkish government doesn’t give researchers access to vital records and population documents dating to the Ottoman Empire.
“To think that I don’t look like the other people in m family is because I look like the Germans, OK, now that makes sense,” he said. “It’s really wild what we uncovered.”
On January 3, 2023, the next season of "Finding Your Roots" debuts.
Oscar winners Julia Roberts and Viola Davis are among those who appear, along with Carol Burnett, political activist Angela Davis, and actor Danny Trejo.
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