Uncovering What Kamala Harris’ Exes Have Said About Her Previously

Kamala Harris’ dating past has unsurprisingly been the target of criticism from the Republican party after she announced her candidacy for the White House. Like many women in contemporary America, Harris had a romantic history before she wed Doug Emhoff. However, it is interesting to note that her previous relationships were quite low-key. Still, instead of casting aspersions on Harris, her exes stood up for her on different occasions.

Harris’ relationship with Willie Brown was extremely controversial ; the relationship between the VP and the Speaker of the California State Assembly raised eyebrows worldwide due to their huge age gap. Harris was only 29 years old at the time and Brown was 60 years old. Moreover, in an opinion piece for the San Francisco Chronicle in 2019, Brown acknowledged that he aided Harris’ career: “Yes, we dated. It was more than 20 years ago. Yes, I may have influenced her career by appointing her to two state commissions when I was Assembly speaker.” But he added, “I have also helped the careers of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Gov. Gavin Newsom, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, and a host of other politicians.”

Additionally, the Vice President’s brief romance with former talk show host Montel Williams has also been brought up time and again. Williams garnered comparable attention in 2019 when Harris was a senator running for president in the 2020 election, as both supporters and detractors of Harris’ candidacy centered on her romantic relationships.

Williams posted on X regarding their past relationship on, “@KamalaHarris and I briefly dated about 20 years ago when we were both single. So what? I have great respect for Sen. Harris. I have to wonder if the same stories about her dating history would have been written if she were a male candidate?” He went so far as to unofficially endorse Harris for president in 2024. He reposted a tweet from former US governor Wes Moore, shared at the time, “Today, I am proud to voice my full support and offer my full endorsement to Vice President @KamalaHarris to be the Democratic Nominee for President of the United States.”

At that point, conservative media figures and right-wing pundits started re-sharing old images of Harris and Williams together. As per Marie Claire , X users like Catturd and Congresswoman Laura Loomer took to the internet to spread fake claims about the couple, prompting Williams to ask, “Who is ‘Catturd?'” on X . In tweets that have since been removed, Wiliams defended himself, going so far as to tell Elon Musk , the owner of X, that his platform would never be advertiser-friendly so long as he allowed such unfounded accusations and assaults to remain.

It is also worth noting that Brown recently supported Harris when Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump attacked her and repeated unfounded accusations. For context, last week, as reported by AP News , Trump claimed, “Well, I know Willie Brown very well. In fact, I went down in a helicopter with him. We thought, maybe this is the end. We were in a helicopter going to a certain location together, and there was an emergency landing. This was not a pleasant landing.”

According to Trump, Brown apprised him of ‘terrible things’ against Harris as well. However, Brown denied ever being in a helicopter with Trump in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle. “If I had gone down in a helicopter with Trump, you would have known,” Brown told the newspaper. The veteran Democrat also said he has never trash-talked Harris to Trump.