Everyone loves a BMW and a trip to Paris. Kamala Harris, 29 at the time, was no different. Not only was she gifted a BMW, but she also went on a romantic trip to Paris with her former partner Willie Brown. The 60-year-old Democratic Party kingmaker was the Speaker of the California State Assembly.
American tabloid, The New York Post, has dug into Harris’ past during the crucial campaign for the US presidential election, when her approval ratings surpassed those of Republican candidate Donald Trump.
“During the relationship, Brown gave Harris a BMW, she traveled to Paris with him, attended the Academy Awards ceremony,” and took her on a business trip to Boston as he was meeting with Donald Trump, according to journalist Dean Morain’s 2021 book, Kamala’s Way: An American Life.
So, this tabloid is taking a second look at a book that has been gathering dust since 2021.
There was nothing illegal about this relationship, and the tabloid’s raking up the past is an attempt to tarnish Kamala Harris’ reputation. This report is based on a 2021 book.
The relationship was famous. She was the ‘Speaker’s new partner’
The relationship was well-known in San Francisco. The Chronicle even called Harris “the speaker’s new running mate” and the Los Angeles Times called her Brown’s “frequent companion.”
In November 1994, Brown appointed Harris to the California Medical Assistance Commission, where she received a salary of $72,000 per year and had to attend only monthly meetings. She was working in the Alameda County District Attorney’s office.
Brown has taken credit for the vice president’s political rise. He also showed support for Harris as the Democratic presidential nominee.
“Yes, we dated,” Brown, a two-time mayor of San Francisco, said in a 2019 article. “Yes, I may have influenced her career by appointing her to two state commissions when I was Assembly speaker. And I certainly helped her in her first run for district attorney in San Francisco.”
Harris’s parents’ divorce battle and her life in Canada
Harris, an Indo-Jamaican politician, became the district attorney of San Francisco in 2003, attorney general in 2010 and junior senator in 2017.
It was a proud moment for the Jamaican and Asian community, as well as her parents.
Harris’s parents were embroiled in a divorce battle for three years. Her mother Shyamala Gopalan filed for divorce from her father Donald in 1973. Kamala was 8 years old at the time.
“This initial phase of interaction with my children came to an abrupt halt when — after a difficult custody battle — the context of the relationship was placed within arbitrary boundaries by a court-ordered divorce agreement based on the State of California’s erroneous belief that fathers cannot parent,” her father wrote in Jamaica Global in 2019.
Dr. Gopalan, India’s breast cancer researcher, died in 2009.
Divorce proceedings documents show how Kamala and her sister Maya spent summers and Christmas and Easter holidays with their father and their mother had full custody.
The document also reveals other parts of the divorce. Gopalan got the family’s slide projector and phonograph records, while Donald kept three metal bookshelves, a filing cabinet and $750 in cash.
In 1976, Donald was charged with contempt, which was dropped after he paid $32.50 for Maya’s dental x-rays. His child support payments were also increased to $160.
Kamala Harris was warm and courageous, classmate said
The following year, Gopalan and her daughters moved to Montreal because she had to take a job at McGill University. The girls went to the French primary school Notre-Dame-des-Neiges and then to Fine Arts Core Education (FACE), a bilingual school in Montreal.
According to reports, Harris took classes in drama, violin, French horn, and kettle drums.
Vicki Compton, who also studied at FACE, told the NY Post that as a classmate she was “warm and courageous.”
Harris attended Westmount High School in grades 10 and 11. The school also has other famous alumni, such as musician Leonard Cohen and Oscar-winning actress Norma Shearer.
“She fit right in because there were people of different colors, backgrounds — that’s where she wanted to be,” Harris’ classmate Dean Smith said in an interview with the NY Post. “She was pretty, but she never dated anybody.”
“She was very nice,” Smith said, also praising her “good sense of humor,” and Harris was popular at school.
After all these years, the American tabloids found the election season to be the perfect time to expose Kamala Harris’ relationship. Well, things get very dirty and personal during election season.
tune in