When JD Vance brazenly described Kamala Harris as a ‘childless cat lady,’ it sparked an immense fascination into the former Vice President’s family life.
JD’s statement thrust a spotlight onto her marriage to Doug Emhoff, and over the course of her 2024 campaign, the intimate details of Kamala’s relationship were picked apart time and time again.
But the couple was completely unfazed by the sudden attention after previously concreting themselves as the perfect couple.
Doug, 60, has continuously supported Kamala, also 60, through every step of her career and stood fiercely by her side while she served as Joe Biden‘s vice president and ran against Donald Trump during the 2024 election.
He has been honest about how it was a bit of an adjustment for him when Kamala first became Biden’s running mate, as Kamala was so focused on her work it left little time for their romance.
But his support never wavered, and it seemed as though the pair could withstand anything.
But in October, the couple’s picture perfect image was shattered as they became embroiled in scandal after DailyMail.com exclusively laid bare shocking details from Doug’s past that had been previously been kept out of the spotlight.
At the time, it was revealed that he had cheated on his first wife with his daughter’s nanny.
In addition, a source accused him of once striking an ex-girlfriend in the face to DailyMail.com, and former co-workers claimed he was ‘inappropriate’ and ‘misogynistic’ at work.
He later confessed to the explosive affair, but denied he ‘ever hit a woman,’ and when he was given a chance to slap the rumors of his past behavior in the workplace down on national television, he instead brushed them off.
Amid the furor of claims against him, the question arose: would he and Kamala shake them off and continue to be the power couple they once were or would it ultimately lead to their demise?
While they put on a united front in the months that followed, rumors have now erupted that they are having problems in their marriage because she partly ‘blames’ his scandals for costing her the election.
Amid the swirling speculation about their marriage, FEMAIL has recapped their entire love story from start to finish.
From how they met and what he’s said about her political career to his past scandals and what’s really going on between them now, here’s a completely timeline of Doug and Kamala’s relationship.
The early years: Kamala and Doug were set up on a blind date by a mutual friend and have said it was ‘love at first sight’
Kamala and Doug met in 2013 after a mutual friend set them up on a blind date.
At the time, Doug was working as an entertainment lawyer while she had become the Attorney General of California a few years prior.
He was previously married to film producer Kerstin Mackin, whom he welcomed two children with – Cole and Ella – before they split in 2008.
‘My best friend, Chrisette, was blowing up my phone. I was in the middle of a meeting, and my phone wouldn’t stop buzzing,’ Kamala recalled in her memoir, The Truths We Hold, of how she and Doug met.
‘I ignored her call the first several times, but then I started to get worried. Her children are my godchildren. Had something happened?
‘I stepped out and called her. “What’s going on? Is everything okay?” “Yes, everything is great. You’re going on a date,” she said.
“‘I am?” “You are,” she replied with total certainty. “I just met this guy. He’s cute and he’s the managing partner of his law firm and I think you’re going to really like him. He’s based in Los Angeles, but you’re always here for work anyway.”
‘Chrisette is like a sister to me, and I knew there was no use in arguing with her.
‘”What’s his name?” I asked. “His name is Doug Emhoff, but promise me you won’t Google him. Don’t overthink it. Just meet him. I already gave him your number. He’s going to reach out.”‘
After her pal gave Doug her number, Kamala recalled how he left her a ‘long and rambling’ voicemail.
‘He sounded like a nice guy, though, and I was intrigued to learn more,’ she explained.
‘Doug, on the other hand, was pretty sure that he had ruined his chances. The way he tells it, he thought his voicemail had been disastrous and that he’d likely never hear from me again.
‘He had to restrain himself from calling again and leaving another long-winded message trying to explain away the first one.’
She eventually called him back and said the ‘conversation just flowed.’ They ended up getting dinner a few days later.
Doug has said that it was ‘love at first sight’ for him, with Kamala adding that he ‘couldn’t get her off his mind’ following their date.
‘There was no pretense or posing with Doug, no arrogance or boasting,’ she recalled of her first impression.
‘He seemed so genuinely comfortable with himself. It’s part of why I liked him immediately.’
The next morning, he emailed her a ‘list of his available dates for the next couple months,’ Kamala revealed on Instagram.
‘He said, “I want to see if we can make this work.” We’ve been making it work ever since,’ she wrote.
By their third date, they were officially a couple, and they got engaged in March 2014.
And while Doug planned to ask Kamala to marry him during a romantic trip to Italy, he ended up doing it in their home because he couldn’t bare to wait.
‘He’d concocted an elaborate plan to propose to me in front of the Ponte Vecchio, in Florence. But once he had the ring, it was burning a hole in his pocket,’ Kamala joked in her tome.
‘He couldn’t keep it secret. I looked at him there, on one knee, and burst into tears.
‘Mind you, these were not graceful Hollywood tears streaming down a glistening cheek. No, I’m talking about snorting and grunting, with mascara smudging my face.
‘Doug reached for my hand and I held my breath and smiled back. Then he asked me to marry him, and I bellowed a tear-soaked “Yes!”‘
The couple tied the knot in August 2014, and Kamala officially became the step mother to his two kids.
She’s now incredibly close with her step kids, who lovingly call her ‘Momala.’
She wrote in her memoir, ‘They are brilliant, talented, funny kids who have grown to be remarkable adults.
‘I was already hooked on Doug, but I believe it was Cole and Ella who reeled me in.’
Supportive husband: Doug stood by Kamala’s side when she ran for Vice President, despite him admitting that it ‘changed everything’ in their relationship
Doug has stood fiercely by Kamala’s side as her career flourished, especially throughout her campaign trail during the 2020 election.
And when she became Vice President of the United States that November, he was nothing but supportive.
‘I would have supported whatever she decided,’ he told Marie Claire in 2020 of her decision to become Biden’s running mate.
‘But I’m not her political adviser. I’m her husband. And so my role was to be there for her, to love her, to have her back, to talk it through, to help her.’
During an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live in 2020, Doug was honest about how ‘everything had changed’ for their relationship amid her new role.
‘Everything’s changed. It’s like being shot out of a cannon,’ he admitted.
‘Since that moment [that she found out she’d be Biden’s running mate], it’s just been hustle, hustle, hustle.
‘And there’s almost no happy couple time anymore, because anytime I’m like… “Look at this,” she’s like, “Stop. Focus. We’ve got to win this thing.”‘
Kamala’s sudden thrust into the public eye may have put a large spotlight onto their romance and left little time for relaxing, but it didn’t defer them.
Doug’s son, Cole, joked to the New York Times in 2021, ‘Doug and Kamala together are like almost vomit-inducingly cute and couple-y. I’m like, “When is this going to wear off?”
His sister, Ella, added, ‘It’s so insane. It’s like the honeymoon phase forever.’
His murky past comes to light: While she was running for President, DailyMail.com exclusively laid bare his previous extramarital affair
Doug was just as supportive when Kamala ran for President against Donald last year, traveling the globe with his wife throughout her strenuous campaign trail.
But in August 2024, the couple became embroiled in scandal after DailyMail.com exclusively laid bare Doug’s shocking past.
Sources revealed at the time that he had cheated on his first wife with their daughter Ella’s nanny, Najen Naylor, who also taught at their children’s pricey private school.
A close friend with direct knowledge of the affair said Doug even got Najen pregnant, but claimed she did not keep the child – though her social media shows a video of a mysterious baby girl named Brook in 2009, the year the baby would have been born.
The insider claimed that Doug paid the nanny $80,000 in exchange for her signing a non-disclosure agreement and that his cheating played a big part in his divorce from Kerstin in 2009.
He has since admitted to being unfaithful to his first wife, stating, ‘During my first marriage, Kerstin and I went through some tough times on account of my actions.
‘I took responsibility, and in the years since, we worked through things as a family and have come out stronger on the other side.’
A source also claimed that Doug once assaulted an ex-girlfriend at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2012.
They alleged that he struck the woman in the face so hard she ‘spun around,’ while waiting in a valet line following the event.
One of her friends told DailyMail.com that the woman called her immediately after the incident, sobbing in her cab, and described the alleged assault.
A spokesperson for Doug did not respond to DailyMail.com’s request for comment, but said the allegations were ‘untrue’ in a statement to politics website Semafor.
‘Any suggestion that [Doug] would or has ever hit a woman is false,’ they added.
Facing a furor of allegations: More accusations then emerged, this time from past coworkers who claimed he was ‘inappropriate’ and ‘misogynistic’ at work
In October, reports also emerged that claimed Doug was ‘inappropriate’ and ‘misogynistic’ at work.
Colleagues from his former firm Venable alleged to DailyMail.com that he yelled expletives, held a men-only cocktail hour in the office, revoked work perks from women who didn’t flirt with him, and took only young, attractive associates in a limousine to a ball.
One senior former staffer claimed Doug ‘bragged’ about yelling ‘get the f**k out of my office’ to a female partner at the firm, later telling his top male colleagues that he had ‘put her in her place.’
‘She had to ask him something,’ the ex-staffer said. ‘His office door was closed. She said to his secretary, “Is he on the phone?” She said no.
‘She tapped on the door, he didn’t answer, so she slightly opened the door and stuck her head in.
‘He said, “Get the f*** out of my office.” What’s worse was he bragged about it to the management at Venable and they were aghast.
‘He’s an a**hole. He told them how he “put her in her place.” A misogynist, that’s who does that.’
A separate female ex-staffer said it was well-known at the firm that Doug was ‘very flirty’ and that ‘if you weren’t flirty back or didn’t respond positively then you were on his s**t list.’
The former Venable lawyer accused him of ‘favoritism,’ saying the consequences of not flirting with him were that ‘you wouldn’t get to work on the cases you wanted to work on.’
‘There were deadlines that, if you were one of his favorite people, wouldn’t apply. But if you weren’t, they would,’ she told DailyMail.com.
Another woman who worked at the firm for several years claimed Doug ran men-only drinks nights in the office.
‘He had, for many years cocktail parties where only men were invited. In the office, on Friday evening,’ she said.
‘When my colleague brought that to the attention of Venable [around 2010], that stopped.’
In addition, a woman who worked under Doug as a junior attorney at Venable told DailyMail.com that he favored ‘young, pretty girls’ at the firm.
‘If there was an event, like the Justice Ball, he would favor certain people. Usually it was young, pretty girls. And he would prefer for them to ride with him. He would get a limo,’ she said.
‘I just don’t think his behavior was appropriate for the position he was in.’
Afterwards, Doug was asked by MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough whether the allegations about his personal life ‘p***ed’ him off.
The Morning Joe host didn’t question him over the details or ask whether the DailyMail.com reports about his past were true.
Joe even reduced them to being ‘tabloid’ stories being pushed by Donald Trump and Republican critics.
But Doug avoided the chance to slap them down and instead brushed them off, while insisting he was only focused on his wife’s presidential campaign.
‘We don’t have time to be p***ed off,’ he told Joe. ‘We don’t have time to focus on it. It’s all a distraction. It’s designed to try to get us off our game.’
‘Does it get you off your game?’ Joe asked him.
‘No. All we are doing – all we talk about – is this election,’ Doug responded.
‘We understand the stakes, we understand the responsibility,’ he said, shifting the topic to Kamala’s run against Donald.
‘Our very country, our future – what kind of future are we going to have, who would you like picking the next three Supreme Court justices? The guy who picked the three who overturned Roe v. Wade and want to take away more freedom?’ he asked.
Kamala has never publicly commented on any of the allegations, instead choosing to shy away from the controversy.
Trouble in paradise: It’s rumored the pair are now having problems as a source claimed Kamala ‘blames’ Doug’s controversies for costing her the election
Despite the immense allegations against Doug, he and Kamala stayed strong.
That is, until last week, when sources told DailyMail.com that she partly ‘blames’ her husband for her loss against Donald.
‘There’s plenty of blame to go around as far as Kamala is concerned and Doug has his share,’ they said.
‘Doug did Kamala no favors during the election – frankly, he looked like a hypocritical a** after the bombshells that he had got his child’s nanny pregnant while married to his first wife and assaulted his ex-girlfriend on the heels of his “I am woman” crusade.’
Despite their brave united front at the inauguration and at President Jimmy Carter’s January 9 funeral, those close to the couple believe all is not ‘hunky dory’ between them.
‘I see the signs that all is not hunky dory in the Harris household,’ they continued.
This post was originally published on here
