Sofia Vergara believes her former fiancé is using their frozen embryos for fame.
Sofia Vergara
The 'Modern Family' actress is locked in a legal battle with Nick Loeb after he filed a suit last year to protect, and bring to term, two female embryos, which they had created and planned to use with a surrogate during their relationship, a request she is against.
And after Nick furiously insisted he would rather "go to jail" than name two ex-girlfriends who had abortions around 20 years ago because of their "right to privacy", 44-year-old Sofia's legal team claim he is only pursuing his pro-life stance to gain "public exposure".
Her lawyer, Fred Silberberg told the New York Post newspaper's Page Six column: "Oddly, Loeb wants us to believe that he supports a woman's right to privacy and to make a choice concerning reproduction. However, he seems to believe that his celebrity ex-fiancée, Sofía Vergara, does not have those same rights, especially if it means giving him more public exposure
"Loeb, while claiming to be in support of the 'right to life,' disclosed that he had gotten two different women pregnant prior to his relationship with Vergara and that the pregnancies were terminated."
The attorney insists there is a valid reason for wanting the two women named, and insisted their identities would be protected by a confidentiality order, despite 41-year-old Nick's concerns over their privacy.
He explained: "As Vergara's counsel, I wish to inquire of them as it directly relates to Loeb's contentions that his beliefs in the 'right to life' are the bases for his asking the court to allow him to go against the written document he signed, and attempt to have the pre-embryos implanted into a surrogate over Vergara's objections. Loeb's actions prior to his relationship with Vergara seem contradictory to the claims he is making in this lawsuit and beg the question as to why is it that he finds it important to bring the pre-embryos created with Vergara, a public figure, to term but not the actual embryos created previously with two different women?"
The former couple are said to have a written agreement that neither could take action over the embryos without the other's consent, and Nick is keen to use a surrogate to have children and raise them alone without any parental or financial support from the actress.
Sofia - who is now married to Joe Manganiello and also has a son Manolo, 24, from a past relationship - wants them destroyed.
Tagged in Sofia Vergara Joe Manganiello Nick Loeb