Inside Nick Loeb’s ‘weird’ battle for Sofía Vergara’s embryos, aka ‘his daughters’: the scion of the Lehman family directed a Roe v. Wade film, and has named the frozen embryos Emma and Isabella …

Feb 29 , 2024

Nick Loeb, left, and Sofia Vergara. Loeb is seeking custody of embryos he created with Vergara before their relationship ended. Photo: Invision/AP

Sofía Vergara and Joe Manganiello finalised their divorce in February, in what seemed like a relatively smooth process – but her other ex has been making headlines

Nick Loeb – American businessman, actor and scion of the famous Lehman Brothers banking family – is 10 years younger than Vergara, and dated her between 2010 and 2014

Sofía Vergara and Joe Manganiello finalised their divorce last week, in what has been described to British media as being a relatively smooth process.

Sofia Vergara and Joe Manganiello’s divorce was finalised in early February. Photo: AFP

The former couple split last year after seven years of marriage. According to Vergara’s interview with El País last month, they called it quits after realising they had different stances on having children. “My marriage broke up because my husband was younger; he wanted to have kids, and I didn’t want to be an old mom,” the actress told the publication. Vergara, 51, shares a 32-year-old son, Manolo Gonzalez Vergara, with her first husband Joe Gonzalez.

Sofia Vergara’s ex Nick Loeb is pursuing his right to her frozen embryos. Photo: AFP

As the dust settles on their break-up, with Vergara reportedly dating multimillionaire doctor Justin Saliman and Manganiello finding love with Caitlin O’Connor, there’s one ex from the Modern Family alum’s life who’s suddenly back into the spotlight: Nick Loeb.

The 48-year-old American businessman and actor is a scion of the famous banking family that started Lehman Brothers and is 10 years younger than Vergara. According to Us Weekly, he dated Vergara for four years from 2010 to 2014.

During their romance, they got engaged and had plans to start a family, undergoing IVF and creating four embryos, per British media. Two embryos were implanted in a surrogate but it didn’t end up in a pregnancy.

The other two are reportedly still frozen, cryopreserved in a clinic in California. But here’s where it starts to get, err, weird.

Rather than calling them embryos, Loeb refers to them as “my children” and “my daughters”, and has even given them both a name … Emma and Isabella.

“They are ancestral names. I’m very big into genealogy and I have an eclectic ancestry,” he told the Daily Mail in an exclusive interview. “I’m a quarter British, but I also have Spanish, Danish and German ancestry.” He added: “People have relationships with embryos all the time. 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?”