Unpacking allegations GOP Rep. Max Miller threw boiling water at his ex-wife

As news broke in August 2026 that U.S. Rep. Max Miller, a Republican from Ohio, would face a congressional ethics committee investigation into allegations of illegal drug use and domestic abuse, social media users spread a rumor that Miller once threw boiling water on his then-wife, Emily Moreno. 

The claim circulated on Facebook, X and Threads. While some posts treated the rumor as fact, others noted that it was an allegation from Moreno. 

Moreno has, in fact, accused Miller of domestic violence and abuse amid a lengthy custody and divorce battle. In a May 27, 2026, court affidavit — which carries legal penalties if her testimony is untrue — Moreno alleged that Miller threw hot water on her. The claim that the water was boiling, specifically, originated from an earlier report from the Daily Mail, which first reported on the hot water allegations. While Miller has acknowledged that he threw water on Moreno, he has denied all allegations of abuse and, in his own affidavit, dismissed the incident as “horseplay” with water that was not boiling. 

Moreno provided additional evidence to back up her allegations in court documents, including images of her alleged injuries and a police report with an interview in which Moreno said Miller threw hot water on her. Miller has shared a Dropbox full of files he claims vindicates him from Moreno’s accusations.

It’s worth noting this article does not provide a breakdown of additional domestic violence and abuse accusations from Moreno and other past partners of Miller’s, as well as child abuse allegations. The hot water incident is one of many accusations that have led to increasing calls for Miller’s resignation, including from Moreno’s father, Republican Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno. Miller has said he will not resign and before the congressional ethics committee’s announcement, he said on X he would file his own request for an ethics investigation to “clear my name from these horrific attacks on myself and family.” 

We reached out to Miller’s spokesperson and await responses to additional questions about the incident. Moreno’s attorney directed us to her court affidavits. Here’s our breakdown of what we know:

Moreno’s allegations

On May 7, 2026, the Daily Mail published a report titled “Chilling photos expose Trump-backed congressman’s ‘abuse’…as senator’s daughter reveals scalding water attack and humiliating apology letter.” The story relied on anonymous sources to repeatedly claim that Miller threw a “pot of boiling water” on Moreno. 

Following the Daily Mail’s report, Miller filed a defamation lawsuit, which accused Moreno of deliberately causing “false and defamatory statements to be published” about Miller that “wrongly and dishonestly claim” that he “committed battery on Moreno by hurling boiling water on her — in front of their minor daughter” (PDF Page 4). 

In response, Moreno denied Miller’s defamation allegations in her court filing and, for the first time, publicly and directly accused Miller of throwing hot water on her in the aforementioned affidavit. 

“Ms. Moreno did not cause The Daily Mail and other news outlets to publish the truth that Congressman Miller threw hot water on her,” Moreno’s May 27 court filing said (PDF Page 11).

Here’s how Moreno described the incident in her affidavit (PDF Page 40): 

On Saturday, June 8, 2024, I told Congressman Miller that I was planning to leave him. He got extremely upset. He took hot water from a pan he had just cooked eggs in and threw it at me. Shocked, I fell to the floor and lay there in a fetal position. Congressman Miller took the sprayer from the sink and continued to spray me with hot water. 

This was extremely upsetting and was one of the final straws in our marriage. After, I took our daughter and fled to my parents’ house.

In the court filing, underneath the affidavit, are images first shared by the Daily Mail that show red marks on Moreno’s stomach, arm and chest, which Moreno said in her affidavit “truthfully and accurately depict my injuries after Congressman Miller threw the hot water on me and sprayed me with the sink hose.” 

(Chandra Law)

Miller’s spokesperson told Snopes in May that the photos of Moreno’s alleged injuries “were not a result of anything” the congressman did. 

Moreno provided images of a handwritten apology note that she said Miller wrote after the hot water incident; Miller said on Page 3 of his own affidavit that it was about the “general state of our marriage” and not the water incident. The note did not mention spraying Moreno with hot water, but it did say: “I do know you love me, protect me, and care for me. I failed to do that for you” (PDF Page 43).  

Moreno’s affidavit also said that in 2025 she told Deborah Koricke, the court-appointed parent coordinator in her domestic relations case with Miller, about the hot water incident. Miller’s attorney deposed Koricke in May 2026, and Koricke confirmed that Moreno told her about the incident. Here’s the relevant part of the transcript of Koricke’s testimony (PDF Page 51):  

She had accused him of throwing water at her at some point when they were still married and together. I call it the water incident. It was a pretty critical incident. She had shown me pictures, not that day, but later where there was like part of her chest with like sort of a red mark.

[…] what he said about the incident was very different than what she said, but they both agreed it had to do with water and being in the kitchen. He said they were fooling around, like goofing around. And that he had taken one of those sprayers from the sink and shot water at her chest. She was very disturbed by it. In fact, this was one of the ending events to their marriage. She had been very disturbed about that. She showed me the picture and it looked a little red. I don’t know what the origin was. I’m not a physician. 

Finally, Moreno shared a police report, which was already public record, as we reported in May. According to investigative documents we obtained from the Bay Village Police Department in Ohio, the report referenced “alleged Domestic Violence incidents” on Page 3, including one in 2024 that included hot water. 

At the time of our previous reporting, law enforcement had redacted all the names of people involved in the investigative documents provided to Snopes. The report said: “an incident stated occurred in Rocky River in 2024 in which [redacted] threw hot water on [redacted] and [redacted] sustained injuries.” Our previous reporting, out of an abundance of caution, we stated that presumably that meant the original report said Miller threw hot water on Moreno, and Moreno sustained injuries. In Moreno’s affidavit, however, she indeed confirmed that she “told the officer about the 2024 incident where Congressman Miller threw hot water on me.” 

Miller’s response 

Miller has consistently denied that he threw scalding hot or boiling water on Moreno, as well as all other abuse accusations. Here’s how he described his version of events in a July 8 court affidavit (Page 2): 

In June 2024, an incident occurred in the kitchen of our home that has been referred to as the “water incident.” What actually occurred was horseplay: I sprayed water at Moreno using the sprayer attached to our kitchen sink. 

The water came from the kitchen sink faucet. It was not boiling. Water from that faucet does not reach boiling temperature. 

I did not throw, hurl, or pour a pot, pan or any other container of boiling water at Moreno, and I did not burn her. 

The incident was not an assault. It was not done in anger, and it was not intended to hurt, punish, or intimidate Moreno. I did not intend to injure her, and I did not believe at the time, or afterward, that I had injured her. My contemporaneous text messages reflect that Moreno was laughing during the incident and I told her I was sorry if I had hurt her. 

The affidavit also said he “never observed any burn, blister, scar, or other injury on her, and she never showed me any injury from the incident.” In an Aug. 2 live broadcast on X, which also addressed the broader domestic and child abuse allegations, Miller repeated the claims in the affidavit about the water incident, including that Moreno also did not seek medical attention (at 13:17). 

In addition, Miller has shared audio recordings that he claims vindicate him, which he made without Moreno’s knowledge “out of concern that she would make false allegations against him down the road.”

In one recording from October 2024, Moreno appeared to say (at 0:35), “I don’t think you would ever hurt me, physically, but you have hurt me.” In another, which Miller said was from August 2024, Miller acknowledges the water incident but disagrees with Moreno over whether he intentionally harmed her. He does not explicitly deny that the temperature was hot enough to scald her; in fact, Moreno’s lawyers have claimed that the audio recording actually supports Moreno’s telling of events. 

In the minute-long recording, Miller repeatedly said he did not mean to hurt Moreno “with intent.” Moreno replied that it is “not playful when you dump hot water,” to which Miller said that the water does “not get to a temperature of boiling water” when it comes out of the faucet.

“I tested it, and I had our attorneys test it, because I figured that this is what you’re going to come at me with,” he said. “It’s like standing under a hot shower.”

The recordings Miller shared feature no obvious signs of manipulation, and both parties have treated the August recording as legitimate in court documents. 

In a document in the Dropbox titled, “SUMMARY FOR REPORTERS,” Miller also repeatedly attempts to poke holes in his ex-wife’s story and claims that it shifted over time. It is worth noting, however, that the core of Moreno’s story — that Miller threw hot water on her — has not changed. 

The bottom line

The audio messages and additional documents that Miller claims vindicate him do not actually vindicate him from Moreno’s abuse allegations, nor do they vindicate him from a history of abuse allegations. As of this writing, there is also no definitive evidence to prove Moreno’s allegations, but domestic violence allegations rarely come with that sort of open-and-shut proof. 

Miller’s claims that Moreno was laughing or not treating the issue seriously at the time also cannot be considered evidence that he did not assault her, as survivors of domestic abuse may respond to their abusers with what’s called a “fawn” response.

“During an assault, a survivor might try to placate the perpetrator—laughing, complying, or trying to ‘keep the peace,'” according to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, the largest anti-sexual assault organization in the United States. 

In sum, while it is impossible to rate this claim — or to say with authority what happened in Miller and Moreno’s kitchen that day in August — that does not absolve Miller of serious accusations against him.