TOWSON, Md. — Luigi Mangione’s family is “beloved’’ Baltimore royalty, fueled by a real estate empire and a history of contributing millions of dollars to health care — the very industry that allegedly drove him to murder.

Luigi’s late grandfather, family patriarch Nick Mangione Sr., liked to talk about being the product of a classic immigrant success story.

“I didn’t have two nickels to rub together when my father died when I was 11, yet I still became a millionaire,” Nick once told the Baltimore Sun of his Italian immigrant dad and his own hardscrabble upbringing.

“What other country can you do that in? None that I can think of.”

The grandfather would go on to build a sprawling network of businesses that ranged from developing and owning local resorts and country clubs to nursing homes and even a radio station.

He and his wife, Mary, garnered local love by being renowned philanthropists, too, donating more than $1 million to the Greater Baltimore Medical Center, where all of their 37 grandkids were born — prompting the facility to name its obstetrics unit after the family, the outlet said.

The Mangione Family Foundation also has made hefty donations to such places as the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the St. Joseph Medical Center at the University of Maryland.

Even Loyola University’s pools are named after the Mangiones.

Nick and Mary had 10 children, and six of them attended the local college.

The family’s personal dynasty reaches as far as Maryland’s statehouse, too, where grandkid Nino Mangione serves in its House of Delegates.

Relatives and friends said the family’s “amazing’’ reputation is what makes the news of Luigi’s arrest all the more shocking — particularly if he was driven by anger over the health care industry, which was near and dear to his grandparents’ hearts.

The brilliant 26-year-old University of Pennsylvania grad is accused of executing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in a sidewalk hit in Midtown last week.

He was allegedly seething over the country’s medical system and what he considered its “mafiosa’’ of greedy health care companies.

What we know about the shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson

5

• Brian Thompson, the CEO of insurance giant UnitedHealthcare, was gunned down Wednesday outside a luxury Midtown hotel in a “brazen, targeted attack,” police said.
• Thompson was named CEO of UnitedHealth in April 2021. He joined the company in 2004. He was one of several senior executives at the company under investigation by the Department of Justice.
• Thompson’s wife, Paulette, said her husband had been getting threats before he was killed.
• Thompson’s shooting led to sick support online, and even spurred a tasteless lookalike competition in NYC.
• A person of interest has been nabbed by police officers inside a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pa.
• The suspect has been identified as Luigi Mangione, 26, originally from Towson, Md. He’s an Ivy League graduate who hated the medical community.

Follow along with The Post’s live updates on the news surrounding Brian Thompson’s murder.

“It’s a shock for all of us,” Luigi’s uncle, Jerry O’Keefe, told The Post on Tuesday.

“I can’t say any more. The statement summed it up for all of us. We don’t know anything more than what’s been reported in the media.”

On Monday, the family issued a statement saying, “We offer our prayers to the family of Brian Thompson and we ask people to pray for all involved. We are devastated by this news.”

Friends and others in the community poured out their hearts to the family on Facebook — where seemingly everyone knows a Mangione.

One friend called the clan “beloved.”

Another person posted, “The Mangione family has built up a tremendous amount of goodwill throughout this region. They need and deserve our prayers and support.”

Someone also wrote, “My son went to elementary and high school with a cousin as well as played soccer together. We got to know some of the family. The Mangione family is a loving, caring, kind and very generous group.”