Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff acknowledged Saturday that he had an affair during his first marriage, years before he began dating Vice President Harris.
“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,” Emhoff said in a statement released to the news media after a British tabloid reported on the affair.
Emhoff and his then-wife, Kerstin Emhoff, divorced after the affair.
“Doug and I decided to end our marriage for a variety of reasons, many years ago,” Kerstin Emhoff said in a statement Saturday. “He is a great father to our kids, continues to be a great friend to me and I am really proud of the warm and supportive blended family Doug, Kamala, and I have built together.”
A person familiar with the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details, said the affair was known to people who conducted the vice-presidential vetting process four years ago when President Biden was running for office. Harris knew about the affair before she and Emhoff married more than a decade ago, the person added.
Brian Fallon, a spokesman for the Harris campaign, declined to comment.
Doug and Kerstin Emhoff have two adult children, Cole and Ella Emhoff.
Kerstin Emhoff has been publicly supportive of Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee, and called her an integral part of the family. She volunteered for Harris’s 2019 presidential run and attended the Biden-Harris inauguration in 2021 alongside Ella and Cole. Harris has called Kerstin Emhoff a “dear” friend.
When Republican nominee Donald Trump’s vice-presidential pick, JD Vance, suggested that Harris and other prominent Democrats “don’t really have a direct stake” in the country’s future because they are “people without children,” Kerstin Emhoff came to Harris’s defense.
“For over 10 years, since Cole and Ella were teenagers, Kamala has been a co-parent with Doug and I,” she said. “She is loving, nurturing, fiercely protective, and always present. I love our blended family and am grateful to have her in it.”
Emhoff gave his first statement about the affair to CNN after the Daily Mail, a British tabloid, published a story on the relationship early Saturday.
Trump, who has been married three times, has also been accused of infidelity but has denied such accusations. His alleged affair with adult film actress Stormy Daniels — and a $130,000 hush money payment ahead of the 2016 presidential election to try to keep it quiet — led to a criminal conviction earlier this year.
More than a dozen women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct. He has repeatedly denied wrongdoing. In January, a civil jury ordered Trump to pay the writer E. Jean Carroll more than $83 million for defaming her after she accused him in 2019 of sexually assaulting her two decades earlier. After one of her lawsuits went to trial last year, a jury found that Trump sexually abused and defamed Carroll and awarded her a combined $5 million in damages. That resulted in a separate jury hearing earlier this year to determine whether Trump owed Carroll additional damages.