Joe Manganiello | This Chihuahua Saved My Life

Joe Manganiello was 25, newly sober, broke, and showing up to AA meetings as they started so he could leave the second they ended. A 78-year-old man in a tweed coat took him by the arm one day and said he'd like to take him to lunch. They went to an English tea house in Santa Monica. John Edward Robinson III ordered everything — the full afternoon tea, every dessert on the menu — then explained he was diabetic and would be watching Joe eat them. He knew Tennessee Williams. He knew Elizabeth Taylor. Joe went back to the next meeting so he could take John to lunch. Months later Joe picked him up at his house and found a collection of mug shots on the wall. They were John's: a San Francisco shooting-gallery heroin addict, two DUIs in a single day. Joe says that without the hand on his arm he doesn't stay in the rooms, and without the rooms he has none of the life that followed. John lived long enough to watch him go from working off the back of a construction truck to True Blood, and had people bring him Joe's magazines when he was bedridden. In this conversation with David Begnaud, Joe talks about the seven years his body tried to kill him — the rashes, the bleeding, the misdiagnosis, the month on his side, and the night Sofia Vergara had to authorize surgeons to remove his entire large intestine while he was unconscious. He talks about the avatar he built and then resented people for believing. About giving away his gun. About Finding Your Roots discovering that his father's father wasn't his father, and that he descends from a man named Plato Turner who fought in the American Revolution. About a Santeria ceremony in Ecuador and a week-long ritual in Cuba, and realizing only later whose gods those were. And about a sick chihuahua nobody would keep, who made him a caretaker again at the exact moment he'd stopped being one. Joe Manganiello's memoir Bloodlines is available now wherever books are sold. Get more stories that remind you the world is still good. Sign up for our free newsletter: https://www.thedogoodcrew.com Chapters ☀️ Chapters

00:00:00 Intro: The Sweet Little Old Man Who Grabbed His Arm 00:02:40 The Mug Shots and the Power of Change 00:04:15 Twenty-Five and Angry: Early Sobriety Struggles 00:10:07 Mount Lebanon and the FBI Dream 00:11:53 Misunderstood: The Avatar He Built 00:20:28 Upstream Swimming: Lessons From Dad 00:23:46 Finding Your Roots: The DNA Revelation 00:30:33 Thirteen Years of Silence 00:40:17 The Wedding and the Bleeding 00:44:15 Shutting Down Production: The Ambulance Call 00:46:09 The Night He Thought He'd Die 00:57:11 Deathstroke and the Will to Fight 00:59:09 Ecuador and the Cuban Shaman 01:09:20 Baited and Switched: The Marriage Unravels 01:11:25 The Gun and the Dog Who Saved Him 01:15:18 Big Man, Little Dog: Defending Bubbles 01:17:18 Meeting Caitlin: The Pittsburgh Connection 01:19:46 The Storm Is Over

ABOUT THIS PODCAST: The Person Who Believed In Me is hosted by David Begnaud, founder and CEO of Do Good Crew and often called "America's storyteller." In each episode, David sits down with world-class guests to ask one simple question: Who believed in you before the world did? Big names. Honest stories. Relatable takeaways. David is also a CBS News contributor and host of the weekly segment Beg Knows America, which airs every Monday morning. Host: David Begnaud Guest: Joe Manganiello Executive Producer: David Begnaud, Olivier Delfosse, Justin McGoldrick Booker: Sully Bloch Director of Photography: Foster Parks Supervising Editor: Joey Izzo Live Production Technician: Will Whitley (Statik Creative) Social: Allison Childers Theme Music: Slipstream YouTube Strategy & Packaging: David & Luana Co. CONNECT WITH US: The Person Who Believed In Me: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/believedpodcast