Actress Uma Thurman became emotional just minutes after taking the witness stand Friday to testify in her own defense in a custody case brought by her French financier ex, Arpad “Arki” Busson.
“He was very difficult to be with. He was very angry. He got meaner and meaner,” Thurman said, her voice rising.
The former couple is on trial in Manhattan Supreme Court fighting over their 4-year-old daughter, Luna.
Wearing a black blazer over a paisley dress Thurman looked down and crossed her arms as she described how Busson’s business was rocked by the Bernie Madoff scandal in late 2008.
Thurman and Busson dated off and on from 2007 through 2014. “We never moved in together. He had closet space,” she said.
They first broke up in fall 2009, she said, and she returned a $1.5 million engagement ring he’d given her, she said. They got back together a few months later, but that summer there was a big blowup when Thurman canceled a trip to Busson’s Bahamas estate because her daughter with the actor Ethan Hawke had been in a serious bicycle accident.
“He had a very aggressive tantrum in front of all the kids, he started yelling and shouting throughout the house,” she said. “It was very upsetting and traumatic for myself and the children.”
Busson kept his hand on his chin during his ex’s testimony, frequently shaking his head in disagreement.
After “several large breakups” Thurman conceived their daughter in the fall of 2011.
“How did Mr. Busson respond to the news that you were pregnant,” her lawyer, Adam Wolff, asked.
“Um, he looked at me and said, ‘Well the child won’t share your last name, cannot be a U.S. citizen and can’t have a U.S. passport and will be raised Catholic,'” she recalled, her voice shaking.
“What was the status of the relationship following that conversation?” Wolff asked.
“It was terrible,” Thurman answered.
She said Busson returned the ring to her in the winter of 2012 but didn’t propose marriage. They split for good in February 2014 when their daughter was about 18-months-old.
After the breakup, “we didn’t hear from him for quite some time,” she said. Then his secretary “reached out and said that he wanted to have a visit with her.”
They argued over Busson’s request to see his daughter for two overnights. Shortly after that Busson sued Thurman for partial custody.
Throughout the Manhattan Supreme Court case Busson has been a fickle father, canceling half of his scheduled visits with Luna, Thurman testified.
“When she doesn’t see her father for a long time I think it just creates anxiety,” Thurman said. “It seems like she’s upset or something is bothering her around the whole issue.”
Following one last-minute cancellation Thurman had to cart her young daughter around Africa for a 2015 campaign she supported to save endangered rhinoceroses.
“There’s no contact or cooperation,” she said about her current relationship with Busson.
Thurman will face cross-examination by Busson’s lawyer Friday afternoon.