WASN’T MOOCH OF A MARRIAGE
Pregnant, fed-up wife told Anthony she wanted out
ANTHONY Scaramucci’s wife filed for divorce three weeks ago, in her ninth month of pregnancy, sources told The Post.
Deidre Scaramucci, 38, fed up with her three-year marriage to the new White House communications director, filed divorce papers on July 6 in Nassau County Supreme Court.
On Monday, while Anthony was in West Virginia with President Trump for the Boy Scouts Jamboree, Deidre gave birth to the couple’s second child, James. As of Friday evening, a full four days after delivery, her 53-year-old husband had yet to meet his newborn son, though an associate close to Anthony said he visited the child late that night. He visited his Manhasset, LI, homestead Saturday.
“When James was born, he sent her a text saying, ‘Congratulations, I’ll pray for our child,’ ” said a source close to the situation.
An Anthony associate said, “There was discussion between him, her and the divorce attorneys about Anthony going to the hospital and unfortunately . . . the delivery was sudden.”
Deidre’s anger with her husband was a factor.
“There’s been . . . a lot of lies,” said the source.
Asked if any other person was involved in the split, those close to Anthony said no. Arthur Schwartz, his rep, told The Post, “There’s absolutely zero truth in that.” He said that the couple has been legally separated for five or six months.
The associate added, “The only one he’s dating right now is the West Wing of the White House.”
While Anthony was having dinner with Trump and others in Washington, DC, Wednesday night, Deidre was home on Long Island recovering from labor. The source said Deidre gave birth at Lenox Hill Hospital on the Upper East Side.
Deidre’s attorney, Jill Stone, told The Post her client “is not making this into a circus. She has children to protect and that’s what she’s concerned about.”
Deidre’s infant son, who was born two weeks before his Aug. 8 due date at 5 pounds, 13 ounces, was admitted Thursday to a neonatal intensive-care unit.
“She’s mad. They aren’t really speaking right now,” the source said of Diedre. “The [pain] runs deep. [Anthony] tells her she’s not that smart, that he’s out of her league.”
Anthony’s associate said the couple is trying to divorce amicably and that Anthony was pursuing “a different career objective that didn’t align with Deidre’s trajectory.”
Another person close to Anthony claimed that he was actually the victim of his wife’s verbal abuse: “She would say, ‘You’re a grifter’ . . . She would mock him for being a Trump sycophant.”
DEIDRE graduated from the University of Buffalo in 2001 with an MA in communications. She began working at Anthony’s Manhattan hedge fund, SkyBridge Capital, in 2007, as an assistant, rising to investor relations.
At the time, she was married to Anthony Portelli. The two filed for divorce in 2011, the same year Anthony Scaramucci and his first wife, Lisa, 54, whom he met at church while attending Tufts University, separated after 23 years of marriage.
Anthony and Deidre started officially dating soon after the splits.
They had their first child, Nicholas, in early 2014 and married on July 11, 2014 (once Anthony’s divorce was finalized) in an intimate beach ceremony on Long Island, according to the source close to the couple. They split their time between the North Shore and Southampton.
“The big shift began when Dei- dre went from being arm candy to [being a mother] and being unavailable for nights out [and hobnobbing],” the source said. “That’s when [Anthony’s] decision to just continue his life as it was and leave her behind really started to take hold.”
Another source, a friend of Lisa’s, said, “Anthony had been planning to divorce her for some time and he had told other people he planned to announce it after the baby.”
Relations are so strained that even Anthony’s mother, Marie, who lives one Long Island town over from the couple, said she has yet to meet her new grandson.
“No, I haven’t,” she said when reached by phone. “There’s a reason for it and I don’t want to discuss it.”
No doubt, this isn’t the type of press the spotlight-loving “Mooch” had planned for his first week on the job.
On July 21, the communications director threw son Anthony Jr. a lavish high school graduation party at Hunt & Fish Club, the marble-clad, power-player restaurant he co-owns in Midtown — complete with an hourlong set by DJ Clue, a performance by rapper French Montana and balloons in New York Mets blue and orange. (Anthony is a minority owner of the team.)
“He was asking everyone
around him how he did [at his first press conference],” said Hunt & Fish co-owner Eytan Sugarman, who said Anthony is already gearing up to be lampooned on “Saturday Night Live” this fall.
“He was thinking Meryl Streep or Julia Roberts could play him,” Sugerman added.
The pomp and celebrity is a far cry from Anthony’s humble roots growing up in a middle-class, Italian-American, Roman Catholic family in Port Washington, LI. His father toiled as a construction worker and one of Anthony’s first job was salesman in his uncle’s shop, Ghost Motorcycles.
He went on to study economics at Tufts University before enrolling at Harvard Law. While an undergrad, he met first wife Lisa, with whom he has three children.
“When they were married, they had nothing, they were literally counting quarters in a jar to figure out what they were going to have for dinner that night,” said the friend of Lisa’s. “They liked that. They knew they were going to climb together.
“Things went bad when Anthony became very successful in the late ’90s,” the friend added.
“We’ve been friends for 20 years and I never knew his exwife,” said friend and fellow Hunt & Fish co-owner Nelson Braff. “Once he said, ‘Did you ever meet my ex?’ and I said, ‘No, never,’ and he said, ‘She really didn’t want to participate in what had become my life.’ ”
That life was heavy on chasing Wall Street riches.
Anthony landed a job at Goldman Sachs after law school, where he worked until 1996. That year, he launched Oscar Capital Management, which was eventually sold to Neuberger Berman. With the profits, Anthony founded SkyBridge Capital in 2005. Deidre worked for him.
“Deidre got swept away by the big world she was walking into. It’s very flashy and she hadn’t lived that life before and I don’t think she could see past it,” said the friend.
Lisa told The Post, “Although divorced in 2014, we maintain a cordial relationship for the benefit of our children.”
WHEN Anthony sold SkyBridge Capital — valued at $200 million — in January, life got a bit flashier. According to the White House employee’s financial-disclosure form, Anthony’s net worth is a tidy $85 million.
“Anthony is an American success story by any measure,” Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, told The Post. “He’s someone who breathes the rarified air of Harvard Law School, Goldman Sachs, enormous wealth and wildly successful, but he never forgot his roots and for all his celebrity, maintains his humility. He doesn’t need the job [of communications director] and the hassle that comes with the long hours and short fuses.”
As Braff said: “He’s a blue-collar personality . . . He’s very likeable and brash and gets away with saying things that, other people, if they said it, might be deemed offensive.”
Anthony regularly flies private, has a personal trainer at the members-only Core Club off Park Avenue and, according to Braff, “he’ll proudly tell you he colors his hair and gets tan.”
And, like any good multimillionaire, he co-owns a restaurant, complete with his name engraved on a plaque by his favorite corner table.
“That’s a male, Wall Street, testosterone thing where you need a restaurant, a sports team and art,” said the financial colleague. “It’s just part of the trappings [of] saying you’ve reached a certain level.”
In 2010, he shelled out $100,000 to have the SkyBridge logo appear in the flick “Wall Street 2.” (It also got him two movie cameos.)
“He likes to be around power players. And Donald Trump is that to a certain extent. Bo Dietl is to another extent. He likes to be at the Regency, at Rao’s, wherever you can hobnob with Wall Street and New York glitterati,” said the financial colleague.
Anthony also ponies up $30,000 a year to host his friends at Hunt & Fish for a New Year’s Eve bash. Dietl says that type of generosity is par for the course.
“When I had Warren Buffett up to Rao’s a few times, he never picked up the check,” said Dietl. “Anthony Scaramucci, when he goes to Rao’s, he’s the only guy who I can’t pick up the check for. Sometimes . . . there’s eight people and he sneaks the check.”
Braff says the newfound political capital hasn’t gone to Anthony’s head — yet.
“He’s one of the 20 most important people in the United States, and he still called to check on his friend’s dinner reservation for Thursday night to make sure he’s VIP. I don’t know what else is going on in the world, but at least I know Brian Gold is well taken care of Thursday,” Braff said with a laugh. “In Anthony’s world, there’s just what’s in front of him. There’s no big and no small.”
Anthony even stepped out of the Oval Office last week to take a call from his mother, Marie, according to Conway.
“So apparently, he does serve two bosses,” she said.
Perhaps. But it’s clear that Trump is the only person he has eyes for nowadays.
IN January, Anthony stepped down from SkyBridge Capital, selling a majority stake to a Chinese conglomerate after having been named as a candidate for assistant to Trump and director of the White House Office of Public Liaison and Intergovernmental Affairs. But when he failed to get appointed, Scaramucci kept his head high.
“I actually saw him a couple weeks after he lost the role and I asked him how he was,” said the financial colleague. “He said, ‘How am I? I just sold my business for $200 million and everything’s great. I talk to the president every night and I’m going to win.’ He was not for one second, ‘ Woe is me, this is embarrassing.’ ”
Conway says loyalty helped get Anthony into the White House. “Absolutely, and he didn’t whine about [being passed over], which goes a long way,” she said. “I think it’s oxygen for the soul to have him here.”