Behind Vice President Kamala Harris’ persona as “Momala” are her two stepchildren: Cole and Ella Emhoff. With Harris’ presidential campaign now in full swing, they too are stepping into the limelight.
Ella Emhoff, 25, spoke out earlier this week after comments resurfaced from GOP vice presidential pick JD Vance, who in 2021 said Harris and other Democrats are “childless cat ladies” who “want to make the rest of the country miserable too.”
In an Instagram story posted Thursday, Ella Emhoff pushed back on this.
“How can you be ‘childless’ when you have cutie pie kids like Cole and I?” she said. “I love my three parents.”
The youngest members of the second family, Cole, 29, and Ella, 25, are the children of second gentleman Doug Emhoff, who was previously married to film producer Kerstin Emhoff, who herself called Vance’s comments “baseless.”
“For over 10 years, since Cole and Ella were teenagers, Kamala has been a co-parent with Doug and I,” she said in a statement to NBC News. “She is loving, nurturing, fiercely protective, and always present. I love our blended family and am grateful to have her in it.”
Vance spokesperson Taylor Van Kirk told NBC News that those on the left have taken Vance’s words out of context “and spun up a false narrative about his position on the issues.”
Since the pandemic and President Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential run, Ella Emhoff has become a social media phenomenon.
Dubbed by some as the “First Daughter of Bushwick,” the New York City resident is a graduate of Parsons School of Design and in 2021 was signed as a model to renowned agency IMG Models. She also made a cameo in Bo Burham’s 2013 music video “Repeat Stuff.”
Gen Z Americans have connected with her androgynous fashion sense and quirky hobbies since her stepmother took office as vice president. She said in a 2021 New York Times interview, conducted alongside her brother, that her mom, Doug Emhoff and Harris are a “three-person parenting squad.” They don’t always get her interests, she said, but they’re supportive anyway.
“With hair and tattoos and things like that, I think they’re all in the realm of like, ‘I don’t understand it, but I want you to be who you want to be,’” she said.
She has been featured on magazine covers and in editorials, and has walked runways. She’s also known for her knitting club, “Soft Hands Knit Club,” where she taught New York City community members to knit using her own materials.
On her website, Ella Emhoff describes herself as a multidisciplinary artist and creator. She’s very active on Instagram, where she mostly shares photos of her knitting, modeling and her dog.
In the New York Times interview, Ella described her parents’ relationship as “like the honeymoon phase forever,” saying she shares a close bond with her stepmom.
“It’s a cool dynamic we all have. And I think it is a good model to show that you can have this and this isn’t weird,” she said.
Doug Emhoff’s son, Cole, is significantly quieter than his sister where his social media presence is concerned, but he has also put his close relationship with Harris on display many times. At his wedding last year, Harris officiated the ceremony.
“It was so wonderful that the kids asked me to do it,” Harris told People magazine at the time. “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.”
Cole Emhoff said he loved Harris from their first meeting, when he was a senior in high school.
“I met her and we had this amazing dinner. And I realized like, Oh, my God, Doug has met someone who is completely unique and totally special,” he told Glamour in 2020.
Both siblings attended Biden’s inauguration in 2021, and behind-the-scenes photos from the event broke up Cole’s otherwise low-key Instagram feed.
“It’s weird to turn on CNN and see my dad. I’m like, ‘Wait, you don’t belong there! But I guess you do?’” he said in the New York Times interview. “It feels completely unprecedented for us because we haven’t really been around politics our entire life. We’re still kind of getting used to it.”
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