All About Kamala Harris’ Husband, Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff

Vice President Kamala Harris’ husband, Douglas Emhoff, has been by her side for more than a decade.

Second gentleman Emhoff, who usually goes by Doug (and, affectionately, “Dougie” to his wife), began dating Harris in 2013 and married the then-California attorney general a year later.

Harris previously told PEOPLE that two of the things she loves most about Emhoff are his sense of humor and his patience, especially on stressful days.

“We’re talking about the free world,” she said. “These are serious times, and the challenges are incredibly serious, but we don’t take ourselves too seriously in the context of our relationship. You just have to flow and know what’s really important.”

Though he’s Harris’ biggest fan, don’t expect Emhoff to influence her policy or political decisions.

“She’s got plenty of great people giving her political advice,” Emhoff told PEOPLE in November 2020. “I’m her partner, I’m her best friend and I’m her husband. And that’s what I’m here for. I’m here to have her back.”

Get to know Kamala Harris’ husband, second gentleman Douglas Emhoff.

He was a lawyer before becoming second gentleman and a teacher

Kamala Harris and Douglas Emhoff 2021.

Marc Piasecki/Getty

Emhoff was born on Oct. 13, 1964, in Brooklyn, New York, and spent his childhood in Old Bridge and Matawan, New Jersey, with his parents Mike and Barbara, as well as brother Andy and sister Jamie. When he was a teenager, his family moved to southern California.

Emhoff graduated from the University of California, Northridge and got his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Southern California Gould School of Law. He became an entertainment, sports and media lawyer, opening his own firm in 2000, before it was sold in 2006 to Venable, LLP. When he and Harris moved to Washington, D.C., in 2016, Emhoff became a partner at the firm DLA Piper, where his clients included the pharmaceutical company Merck, arms dealer Dolarian Capital and Walmart, according to The New York Times.

When Harris announced her primary candidacy, Emhoff took a leave of absence from his firm. The Times reported that Emhoff announced his resignation from the firm in November 2021, ahead of Harris’ inauguration as vice president.

In addition to his role as second gentleman, Emhoff has also taught at Georgetown University Law Center since 2021.

“Look: It’s odd the second gentleman is their teacher. But we kind of dispensed with that … maybe five minutes in the first class,” Emhoff said. “Now, it’s just they want to learn, they want to be great lawyers and I’m trying to impart to them experiences as a lawyer.”

He and Harris met on a blind date

Kamala Harris and Douglas Emhoff.

Kamala Harris Instagram

One of Harris’ close friends, PR consultant Chrisette Hudlin, set Harris and Emhoff up on their first blind date in 2013. (While Harris said Hudlin told her to go into the potential romance with an open mind, Harris later admitted that she Googled Emhoff before they started dating.)

Emhoff and Harris first got to know one another over text, which Emhoff initiated while he was at a Los Angeles Lakers game. The next day, Emhoff left Harris what he told PEOPLE was a “ridiculous voicemail,” which she still has saved and plays for him on their anniversary every year.

Emhoff said he didn’t think he’d ever hear from Harris again after leaving the message, but she told PEOPLE she found it “adorable.”

In her memoir The Truths We Hold: An American Journey, Harris recalled that Emhoff was very straightforward with her after their first date. “The morning after our first date, Doug emailed me with a list of his available dates for the next couple of months,” she wrote.

The email read: “I’m too old to play games or hide the ball. I really like you, and I want to see if we can make this work.”

He was married before

Doug Emhoff, son Cole Emhoff, ex-wife Kerstin Emhoff, and wife Kamala Harris.
Kerstin Emhoff/Instagram

Emhoff was previously married to film producer Kerstin Emhoff from 1992 to 2010. Emhoff and Kerstin remain close friends, and he stayed on as her lawyer and business adviser after their split and until he left his practice ahead of Harris’ inauguration as vice president. Kerstin and Harris are also close.

Kerstin told TIME that one way Emhoff is different in his marriage to Harris is that he plans trips for the couple. “Of course he’s a better husband [to Harris], and that’s great,” Kerstin said. “That’s how it should be.”

For his part, Emhoff says that in his marriage to Harris he tries to live by the mantra of “listen more than you talk.”

He and Harris took their relationship and blended family slowly

Cole Emhoff, Douglas Emhoff, Kamala Harris, and Ella Emhoff.

Douglas Emhoff Instagram 

Emhoff was divorced and Harris was a child of divorce, so they took their time letting their relationship develop organically, Harris wrote in a 2019 Elle essay. They were especially careful about introducing Harris to Emhoff’s children with Kerstin: daughter Ella — an artist, designer and model — and son Cole, who works as a producer and crew in Hollywood.

“Doug and I put a lot of thought into when and how I would first meet the kids,” she wrote, adding that when she finally did meet the pair, she “had butterflies in [her] stomach.”

“Cole and Ella could not have been more welcoming,” Harris recalled. “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.”

Harris has a close relationship with Cole, Ella and Kerstin. “One of the keys to my relationship with Cole and Ella is their mom,” Harris said ahead of the 2020 election. “The thing about blended families — if everyone approaches it in the way that there’s plenty of love to share, then it works.”

Ella and Cole call Harris “Momala,” a combination of her first name and a Yiddish word for “little mother.”

“It’s the name the kids gave me, and I wear it proudly,” Harris told PEOPLE in November 2023.

He has three tattoos

Kamala Harris and Douglas Emhoff 2021.

Kiran Ridley/Getty

Emhoff has three tattoos, all of which are inspired by the people he loves the most.

He has daughter Ella and son Cole’s initials tattooed on the inside of his wrist, which he told CNN was to serve as “a visceral reminder of them” after his divorce from Kerstin.

Emhoff also has a tattoo of a dragon symbol to mark his and Harris’ birth year of 1964, which was the Year of the Dragon in the Chinese Zodiac.

He and Harris’ wedding was small

Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff.
Kamala Harris/Instagram

Emhoff proposed to Harris in her apartment on March 27, 2014, after about a year of dating, according to The San Francisco Chronicle.

Emhoff told Marie Claire that he asked Harris to marry him “in the middle of a decidedly unromantic conversation (she was deliberating between chicken or shrimp pad thai).”

The pair got married in a Santa Barbara, California, courthouse wedding on Aug. 22, 2014. Harris’ sister Maya officiated the ceremony, which was accompanied by a cellist. Harris’ niece, Meena, read Maya Angelou’s poem “Touched by an Angel” during the ceremony, and Emhoff and Harris each wrote and read their own vows.

A close friend of Harris, Stacey Johnson-Battiste, told PEOPLE that the ceremony was “elegant” and added of Emhoff, “He absolutely adores her. He wants to protect her. He’s very supportive of her career. And I think that he is the perfect compliment to her in that he understands her and the role that she has.”

He supported Harris throughout the 2020 election cycle

Kamala Harris and Douglas Emhoff 2020.

Win McNamee/Getty

Emhoff stood proudly by Harris’ side when she ran in the Democratic presidential primary in 2019, even being photographed with a picture of Harris on his phone case at an Iowa campaign stop.

When she withdrew from the primary in December 2019, he remained a pillar of support. “She made that decision, and I would have supported whatever she decided, but I’m not her political adviser,” Emhoff told Marie Claire. “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.”

When she was named Biden’s running mate in the 2020 race, Emhoff and Harris’ schedules got more hectic than ever before that point. The couple told PEOPLE that they stayed connected throughout their busy days on the campaign trail and that some of their quality time together was simply spent making itineraries.

“We are a partnership. It’s a lot of planning,” Emhoff said. “Typically, we get up early, we work out and then we sit down and it’s like, ‘Let’s have a meeting and figure out how we’re going to get through these next couple of days.’ ”

He made history as the first second gentleman in more ways than one

Kamala Harris and Douglas Emhoff 2023.

Kevin Dietsch/Getty

Harris made history as the first woman, first Indian American and first Black vice president, but Emhoff also broke barriers as the first second gentleman.

“I am honored to be the first male spouse of an American President or Vice President,” he tweeted from the then-newly minted @secondgentleman X (formerly Twitter) account. “But I’ll always remember generations of women have served in this role before me — often without much accolade or acknowledgment. It’s their legacy of progress I will build on as Second Gentleman.”

Emhoff told TIME in 2021 that he was “learning about wallpaper” in his role, which also involved picking out china, and that both former second ladies Karen Pence and Dr. Jill Biden (who was upped to first lady) were helpful to him in learning about the job.

Emhoff is also the first Jewish second gentleman, and he made history when he lit the White House menorah for Hanukkah in 2021. President Biden said at the event, “This is a White House tradition, but for the first time in history, it is a family tradition.” Emhoff also lit the national menorah for the first time the same year.

In July 2023, Emhoff made history again, that time as the highest-profile American official to visit Samoa.

He fights toxic masculinity and antisemitism

Kamala Harris and Douglas Emhoff 2021.

Anna Moneymaker/Getty

Aside from the typical duties of supporting the vice president, one thing Emhoff wants to accomplish in his role as second gentleman is fighting toxic masculinity.

“Now that I’m in the role, and you really see not all men naturally would do this, and would push back, and there’s this toxicity, this, masculine idea of what a man is that’s out there that’s not correct,” he told CNN. “It’s something I just want to push back on.”

Emhoff said that his father, a women’s shoe designer, helped him develop healthier and more diverse ideas about what masculinity means.

“Masculinity is loving your family, caring about your family and being there for your family,” he explained. “We’re kind of mixing up this concept that if somehow a man shows kindness or empathy or consideration for others, that somehow [is] not masculine, and that is just not okay. That is just not true.”

Emhoff has also been a vocal opponent of antisemitism and visited the Holocaust Museum at Auschwitz on Holocaust Remembrance Day in January 2023.

He and Harris start and end their days together

Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

While Harris is vice president “24/7, 365,” she and Emhoff prioritize their marriage by starting and ending their days together.

“We try to approach those moments as husband and wife, not vice president and second gentleman,” Emhoff told PEOPLE in November 2023. “It’s really our time to be a couple … time talking about kids, family and very little about the workings of our days.”

He appeared on Watch What Happens Live!

Charles Sykes/Bravo

In February 2024, Emhoff joined Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens Live!, where he shared a few things people may not know about Harris.

“She loves old-school hip-hop. She’s an amazing chef. [And] she does an incredible impersonation of my 83-year-old Jewish mother, Barb,” the second gentleman said.

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Source: HIS Education