![]() We’d have Friday-night dinner with family and celebrate the High Holy Days but that was it,’ she says. ‘To be honest, I just thought it would be funny – a story to tell.’ She never imagined quite what a story it would become.įor 25 hours, Louise experienced her first ever Orthodox Sabbath. Louise was on the cusp of being signed by a top music agent in a new band when a chance invitation to stay with an Orthodox Jewish family in Golders Green for the Sabbath (via a friend who had Orthodox relatives) changed her course. ![]() ‘We were all catapulted into the limelight and were suddenly on the VIP list for every cool club, hanging out with Westlife and the Spice Girls, and doing TV interviews – it was brilliant,’ she says of the whirlwind she found herself in alongside fellow contestants Darius Danesh, Myleene Klass and Kym Marsh. Today, she has five children (aged five to 17), dresses modestly, wears a sheitel (wig) and lives a typical Orthodox life – but remembers those Popstars days with fondness. Rewind 20 years and Louise was living out her showbiz fantasy in the first series of Popstars. To Londoner Louise Leach, 43, Julia’s rejection of orthodox religion and transformation into a reality TV star ‘is like watching my own life in reverse’. ![]() The Orthodox Jewish world has recently been represented on screen with Israeli drama Shtisel and German-US miniseries Unorthodox, both Netflix hits – but never through a reality TV lens.Īnd yet for some, watching Julia Haart’s journey feels more ironic than intriguing: for those who have gone in the opposite direction and become Orthodox later in life. Her flamboyant lifestyle is typical reality TV fodder – fabulous penthouses, out-there fashion and private jets – but the real intrigue comes from glimpses into the community that Julia left behind, where glitz takes a back seat and faith takes precedence. Viewers of this summer’s Netflix hit My Unorthodox Life will be familiar with its vivacious star Julia Haart, the glamorous Manhattan CEO who until eight years ago was a housewife in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Monsey, New York.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |