2024-07-22 13:00:02
Vice President Kamala Harris has spoken extensively about her role as “Momala” to her two stepchildren.
The 59-year-old vice president, who was recently endorsed as the 2024 democratic nominee by President Biden after he announced his decision to drop out of the presidential race on July 21, married Doug Emhoff in 2014 and became stepmother to his two children, Cole and Ella Emhoff.
In 2019, she wrote an essay for Elle in which she detailed her love for Cole and Ella, describing them as her “endless source of love and pure joy.”
“When Doug and I got married, Cole, Ella, and I agreed that we didn’t like the term ‘stepmom,'” she wrote at the time. “Instead, they came up with the name ‘Momala.'”
“I am so thankful to Doug, to Kerstin (Doug’s ex-wife), and most of all, to Ella and Cole,” she wrote at the end of the essay. “I can say one thing with certainty, my heart wouldn’t be whole, nor my life full, without them.”
During a 2021 recorded video appearance for the Democratic National Convention, Ella described the VP as “Momala, the world’s greatest stepmom.”
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Doug was married to Kerstin Emhoff, a film producer and founder of the production company Prettybird, for 16 years before they divorced in 2008. During their marriage, the couple welcomed their two children, Cole and Ella.
When Harris and Doug Emhoff married, she gained two stepchildren.
In her 2019 book, “The Truths We Hold,” Harris said she and Emhoff waited for her to meet the children until about two months after their first date, but when they did meet, the kids “could not have been more welcoming.”
“They are brilliant, talented, funny kids who have grown to be remarkable adults,” she said in the Elle essay. “I was already hooked on Doug, but I believe it was Cole and Ella who reeled me in.”
Here’s everything we know about Harris’ stepchildren.
Cole Emhoff, 30
Cole Emhoff was born in 1994. According to IMDB, he works in entertainment like his mother.
In her Elle essay, Harris revealed that Cole was named after celebrated American jazz saxophonist John Coltrane.
Harris described in her piece how the family spends time together around the table for Sunday dinners and that it’s her stepson who “sets the table and picks the music.”
His IMDB profile shows that he worked as an assistant on the 2020 hit film “Minari” and in the 2022 remake of “Father of the Bride,” also as an assistant.
Cole was present for the 59th presidential inauguration in January 2021, during which Harris was sworn in as vice president.
In October 2023, Harris officiated Cole’s wedding to Greenley Littlejohn.
In a statement to People at the time, Harris that being asked to officiate “meant so much for so many reasons.”
“For us, we think of marriage as being not just between these two people, but the coming together of families. So it was very much with that spirit that we all participated,” she said.
“I love my husband. I love our marriage. I want for those two (Cole and Greenley) to have a loving marriage where they are best friends and they know that it’s not just them against the world, that our family supports them. That the community of people that came together at the wedding supports (them).”
Ella Emhoff, 25
Ella is a model and fashion designer who graduated from Parsons School of Design in New York City in May 2021.
In her 2019 essay for Elle, Harris revealed that Ella was named after famous American jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald.
In 2021, Ella gained attention for the Miu Miu coat she wore to President Biden’s swearing-in ceremony.
According to The New York Times, one week later, she was signed to the prestigious modeling agency IMG Models.
Harris wrote in Elle that her stepdaughter was on her school’s swim and basketball teams and enjoyed making dessert for the family’s Sunday dinners.
According to her essay, when Harris was sworn into the United States Senate, Ella entered her senior year of high school in Los Angeles, California.
“This new job meant that I would be splitting time between California and Washington, D.C., and the hardest part was going to be being away from my Ella,” she wrote at the time.
