The daughter of “My Unorthodox Life” star Julia Haart broke down in tears Friday as she told a judge about discovering her mom curled up, naked and sobbing, on a bathroom floor after Julia’s husband, Silvio Scaglia, had been screaming at her.
Daughter Miriam Haart cried during a Manhattan Supreme Court video hearing in the divorce case between Haart and Scaglia, in which she testified about a January 2021 fight at the couple’s $65 million downtown triplex.
Miriam told the judge that she heard Scaglia’s screaming through her headphones from the floor below before finally going down to see her mom after Scaglia stepped away.
“I ran to my mother,” Miriam testified. “I saw her on the floor naked, crying hysterically.”
“I ran up to her. I hugged her,” the 22-year-old daughter said as she started tearing up.
“I was holding her. I was trying to calm her down. A few moments later, Silvio reappeared into the bathroom. He seemed really enraged and even more because I was there.
“I felt really bad. My mom told me to go and I ran out of the room and I ran back upstairs and I just cried.”
Miriam said the pair’s relationship began deteriorating during the pandemic over her four kids coming around to their apartment. The daughter said things reached a fever pitch in January 2021.
“That month was really terrible all around,” Miriam said. “I was home and it was full of Silvio yelling at my mother non-stop.”
Miriam recalled hearing Silvio once saying that if Haart hadn’t met him, as a former member of the Orthodox Jewish community, she would have become a drug addict.
“He said all Orthodox people from the community become drug addicts and if not for him, she would have too,” Miriam said.
The daughter said she’d also heard her stepfather once scream at her mom to “Go f–k yourself.”
Miriam confirmed that the Netflix film crew — which started shooting Season 2 of the reality show — had documented some of the split, including filming Scaglio moving boxes out of the triplex in early February and shooting commentary from Miriam about her mom’s divorce.
The daughter said the film crew also caught the aftermath of her Feb. 14 discovery that two expensive paintings disappeared from the apartment walls and that a lock on the apartment door had been broken. The daughter said she later learned two of Scaglia’s workers had removed the art.
Scaglia’s lawyer, Robert Wallack, cross-examined Miriam about her seemingly close relationship with Scaglia by showing her multiple message exchanges she had with her stepfather saying “I love you,” as well as messages from a trip to Dominica to swim with sperm whales that Scaglia took Miriam on.
“You told him that you loved him. Was that true?” Wallack asked.
“No … I didn’t love him. But I was being nice to him and trying to get there,” she responded.
Miriam later clarified that her mom had asked her to keep the peace with Scaglia, so she remained polite in their messages.
Later Friday, Julia Haart — dressed in a gray sweater and appearing to wear no makeup — began testifying about how she started speaking with a divorce attorney in January 2021 before finally hiring one in December.
Haart told the judge that by this past January, Scaglia “very badly wanted to move out because he didn’t want to have the children around.”
“The family situation was bad but he was very complimentary about what I was doing at work. So it was kind of a mixed bag,” Haart said.
Wallack grilled Haart about whether she truly felt unsafe when she sought – and was granted – an emergency family court order of protection against Scaglia.
Wallack showed Haart dozens of messages she and Scaglia exchanged in January and February leading up to the divorce and restraining order where the couple spoke to each other affectionately, repeatedly telling each other “I love you.”
“You weren’t in danger?” Wallack asked.
“I was very, very afraid that I could be in danger if Silvio was allowed to come back into the house,” Haart responded.
“There were no incidents in January 2022,” Wallack said. “It was, every day, hearts and I-love-yous. There were no incidents, is that correct?”
“That’s correct,” Haart answered.
“You knew how devastating it would be to Silvio when you publicized your family court allegations?” Wallack said.
“All I cared about was the safety of my children,” Haart responded. “I just wanted him to leave me alone – myself and my children.”
Haart admitted that she had authorized her public relations team to release information about her family court case to the media.
But she claimed she didn’t realize how much detail from that case would end up in the press and said she fired her lawyers and hired new ones because she felt she hadn’t been given good legal advice.
Haart — who married Scaglia in June 2019 — filed for divorce on Feb. 9 after he fired her as CEO of his company Elite World Group.
Scaglia then filed a lawsuit against Haart alleging she used company money to pay for expensive clothes, handbags, trips, hair, makeup and breast surgery. He also accused her of taking $850,000 from the company account the day he fired her. She has denied the allegations.
The estranged couple is also fighting over the ownership of the downtown apartment.
Haart’s testimony will resume Monday.
