Sofia Vergara’s messy custody battle for frozen embryos – failed pregnancy to baby names

Modern Family star Sofia Vergara formally cut ties with her second husband in February, but her previous partner has been stealing the headlines over his bizarre claims.

Sofia Vergara recently became single again after divorcing Joe Manganiello.
The Modern Family star decided to separate from her actor ex last year after seven years of wedded bliss. Described to the media as being relatively smooth and straightforward, Sofia and Joe called time on their marriage due to varying stances on having children.

But away from her current divorce woes, Sofia’s previous partner re-entered the scene to make some bold claims. Nick Loeb dated the America’s Got Talent judge for four years from 2010 and 2014, and the pair seemed more loved up than ever.

The couple had been going from strength to strength in their relationship, going as far as to get engaged and try for children through in-vitro fertilisation (IVF). The process helped create four different embryos, in the hopes of keeping their dream of a family alive.

Two of the baby embryos were eventually planted into a surrogate, but these were unable to secure a pregnancy. As a result, two embryos remain frozen, and a custody battle for the frozen embryos has erupted between Sofia and Nick.

The cryogenically frozen embryos remain in a clinic in California, but according to sources, Nick has not given up hope of his children being brought into the world. Loeb has referred to them as “my daughters”, as opposed to the current embryos they are.

Nick, who is a staunch anti-abortionist, has even gone so far as to give the embryos different names – Isabella and Emma. Speaking to the Daily Mail, he explained the “ancestral” connection for the name choices: “I’m very big into genealogy and I have an eclectic ancestry.

“People have relationships with embryos all the time,” he added. “Every time a woman gets pregnant, she and her husband start building a relationship with that child, even at embryonic stages – what’s the difference whether those embryos are implanted or in cryopreserve?”

Loeb has been locked in a custody battle with Sofia for the rights to the embryos in a number of courts that span across multiple states. However, in 2021, the courts ruled that Nick is unable to use the frozen embryos without Vergara’s explicit written consent, according to People magazine.