They’re not just frozen embryos, they’re my daughters Emma and Isabella!
When Griselda star Sofia Vergara was engaged to US millionaire Nick, they tried to start an IVF family. Ten years after they split – despite her vehement objection – HE wants them to be born
being a father has made me want my embryos more. I play with my kids. I see the lives in them and I think: “That’s what I have, frozen.” It gives me more anguish, actually. My children would have sisters.’
There was nothing particularly strange about how this story started. Nick and Sofia met at a party in 2013 and immediately became one of those beautiful Hollywood couples.
He had trained as an actor, had political ambitions but was most known for being an entrepreneur (creator of a condiment topping called Onion Crunch, to be precise).
He suspects Sofia never really wanted more children but he did — ‘she said she was doing it for me’ — and the decided route was via IVF and surrogacy. Sofia is on record as saying previous radiation treatment for thyroid cancer left her unable to carry a child, but Nick also surmises that carrying them could have affected her TV show.
Whatever the motivation, they were thrilled when the fertilisation of her eggs with his sperm resulted in multiple embryos.
‘I’ve got texts from her referring to them as “our babies”. She was so excited,’ he says. ‘These were not embryos to be put on hold for a rainy day. We broke up in the process of implantation.’
Court documents later revealed the relationship, which ended in May 2014, had been far from perfect. There were lurid claims, from him, that she had been abusive; that ‘she physically punched him on four separate occasions, she punched him in the face on two occasions, kicked him and threw her phone at his head’, as well as calling him names such as ‘loser’ and ‘worthless’. Sources close to Sofia vehemently denied these claims at the time.
‘Sofia never got physical with him. It just didn’t happen,’ a source told a US website.
Yet in his eyes, they were linked for ever. After the split, Nick texted Sofia, saying: ‘We still have those 2 frozen babys (sic) so I guess we r always going to have some kind of weird connection.’
His fight for these embryos since has involved courtrooms in Los Angeles and Louisiana (a state which also supports the idea that an embryo is a person). In March 2021 LA County Superior Court issued a permanent injunction banning him from using the frozen embryos without Sofia’s written consent.
Last year he attempted (unsuccessfully) to sue the fertility clinic, arguing that it failed to tell him he could be blocked from accessing the embryos.
To date, no court has accepted his argument that, because Sofia herself once regarded these embryos as ‘children’, they have the right to be born.
His disdain for her position is laid bare. ‘In my eyes, for her to go from that to “these are not human” is hypocrisy. Of course an embryo is a human life.’
In his eyes, things are crystalclear. Life begins at the point of fertilisation, therefore disposing of an embryo is akin to killing a baby.
Yet the IVF process puts tens of thousands of couples in the position of having to decide what to do with leftover embryos. Would he then condemn all those who opted for disposal?
‘I think they are killing human lives,’ he nods.
‘They should not be creating more embryos than they should use. They should donate to couples who want to use them. I think the solution to this is to create and implant one embryo at a time, so removing the storage question.’
What further complicates this case is that Sofia could have pressed for the destruction of the embryos without her ex’s consent, but has not done so.
‘She wanted them destroyed, but then she changed the narrative to say that she wanted them preserved for ever.’
He considers this is tantamount to ‘killing them’, but at the same time seems to believe that while those embryos exist, there is hope.
‘Maybe she will go to church more, pray. Maybe God will speak to her. Maybe she will have a change of heart and make sure that those little souls don’t end up in purgatory.’
His pious stance would be easier to understand if Nick hadn’t personally sanctioned abortion.
In his 20s and 30s two partners had terminations.
‘I did not understand, then,’ he argues. ‘I saw it as a clump of cells, not human life. I didn’t really start
‘My children would have two sisters’
‘Abortion will be outlawed in my lifetime’
understanding the pro-life issue until I got into politics.
‘I grew up in a socially liberal household. If I knew I’d created a life, if I truly understood that, I’d have taken responsibility.
‘Of course I still think about them. Both those children would be in their 20s now.’
His political ambitions never materialised, but he has had considerable success positioning himself as an anti-abortion activist.
In 2019 he directed (and starred in) a controversial film, Roe v Wade, and remains utterly convinced that the days of the ‘liberal left’ on this issue are numbered.
‘I genuinely believe abortion will be outlawed in the States in my lifetime.’
Obviously, his sternest critics depict him as a crazy stalker, motivated by some vendetta against Sofia.
‘How is it a vendetta?’ he says. ‘I want nothing from her. I am not asking for money. I will waive any childcare costs. I will even pay her. I would give her money to save the lives of those children.’
Little wonder Sofia Vergara has now adopted a position of silence on this matter and has made it clear she wants to move on.
She is rumoured to be in a new relationship, with orthopaedic surgeon Justin Saliman.
While those embryos exist, however, her ex will not give up. He points out that there are now children routinely being born from embryos that were frozen ‘16, 18, 20 years ago’.
And the current shifting of the sands in the battleground over reproductive medicine also gives him hope.
‘I believe in potential. In the future. Things could change. The laws could change, override this agreement,’ he says, clearly believing that time — which cannot be frozen — will be on his side.