Who's who in Kamala Harris' 'big blended' family

When she accepted the Democratic nomination for president this summer, Kamala Harris boasted of the 'big blended family' she had there to watch.

The inner-circle includes her husband, Doug Emhoff, two step-children from his first marriage and the vice president's sister, Maya.

But it doesn't end there. Her seemingly estranged socialist economics professor dad, Donald and the legacy of her late Indian-immigrant mother who raised her and Maya after they split loom large in the fiber of who Kamala Harris is.

Then there's the baggage of the man who would be 'first gentleman' as revealed in a pair of DailyMail.com exposes of Doug Emhoff's cheating on his first wife with the family nanny and allegations he slapped a former girlfriend.

In the mix is Maya and her husband, their adult daughter and her two kids who had a spotlight on the DNC stage  - not to mention husband Doug's long-suffering ex-wife.

The extended Harris family is so close, in fact, that their private and professional lives have become intertwined like twisted vines - hard to separate one from another.

And that could lead to some serious issues for those Harris holds dear if she wins the White House.

With that in mind, here's a look at the 'big blended' Harris clan:

Shyamala Gopalan Harris - mother

The matriarch of the family, Harris lost her mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, to colon cancer in 2009.

It was a big blow to the then-up-and-coming California politician. She and her sister, Maya, were very close to their mother, who divorced their father when Kamala was 5.

After that, the household of three women were close as can be through Gopalan's many moves during her career as a breast cancer researcher.

Indeed, Harris, in her speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2020, described her mother as 'the most important person in my life.'

Born in India, Shyamala came to the United States at the age of 19 to study. Her goal was to cure breast cancer.

She was accepted to the University of California, Berkeley. It was there, in 1962, she met Donald J. Harris, who was studying economics.

They married the following year and had Kamala in 1964 while living in Oakland (her sister Maya arrived three years later).

They would officially divorce in 1972. Harris, in her memoir, simply said her parents 'stopped being kind to each other.'

Shyamala's work took her all over the world, doing research in France and Canada. For part of her childhood, Harris lived in Wisconsin and Montréal because of her mother's job. Harris and her sister also visited their mother's family in India several times and their father's family in Jamacia.

Harris inherited her mother's love of cooking, her laugh and her sense of justice. Shyamala was the one who instilled a political conscious in Kamala and Maya, taking them to demonstrations and protests when they were in their strollers.

When Harris ran for district attorney of San Francisco, Shyamala was a volunteer on her campaign, helping her daughter win.

But she wouldn't live to see Harris win her next big race, becoming attorney general of California, a position that would catapult Harris' career to the national level.

Donald J. Harris - father

Donald J. Harris lives with his second wife only two miles from his daughter Kamala in Washington, D.C.

But the two have been estranged for years and seldom speak.

Donald, a retired professor of economics, was born in 1938 in Browns Town, Jamaica. He went on to study in London and the United States.

He met Shyamala Gopalan while he was getting his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.

He would go on to become Stanford's first black professor of economics to receive tenure and he helped Jamaica implement an enduring post-colonial economic policy. 

In 2021, he was awarded Jamaica's Order of Merit, the country's third-highest national honor, for his work.

He has been married for roughly three decades to Carol Kirlew, a fellow Jamaican-American and former communications specialist with the World Bank.

But it was his first marriage that had lasting results. After he and Shyamala divorced, Donald remained in Illinois – where he was a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign - while Shyamala and the two girls moved back to California.

He lost a custody battle that brought his closeness to his two daughters 'to an abrupt halt,' he wrote in a 2018 essay.

Republicans have claimed Prof. Harris is a Marxist – a follower of the political philosophies of socialism or communism - who instilled that economic philosophy in his daughter.

But while Prof. Harris has been described as a 'Marxist scholar', Kamala Harris has repeatedly made clear that she supports capitalism.

There were reports Harris was upset her father didn't attend Shyamala's funeral in 2009. He also declined an invitation to Harris' wedding to Doug Emhoff in 2014.

He was said to be angry by Harris's answer, as a candidate for president in 2019, to the question of whether she supported legalizing marijuana: 'Half my family's from Jamaica, are you kidding me?' she cracked.

Donald accused his daughter of promoting a 'fraudulent stereotype.'

He subsequently did not attend the inauguration ceremony in January 2021, when his daughter became the country's first female vice president.

Maya Harris – sister

Close doesn't describe the relationship between Maya and Kamala Harris. The two sisters are seen as inseparable. 

They even share the same trademark body-shaking laugh, which they inherited from their mother.

After their parents' divorce, the two girls were primarily raised by mom Shyamala.

When Kamala and Maya were 12 and 9, respectively, Shyamala accepted a job at McGill University and moved the family to Montreal, Quebec. 

She enrolled the girls in a local school where everyone spoke French except for them. Kamala and Maya later told the Washington Post their relationship further solidified in that place where no one else spoke their language.

Just over two years younger than Kamala, 57-year-old Maya Harris has been described as the vice president's 'Bobby Kennedy' – a reference to the late US Attorney General who was an inseparable companion and indispensable advisor to his brother, President John F. Kennedy.

When Maya was 17. she graduated from high school with honors while in her second trimester of pregnancy. Not even her closest friends knew she was with child. Baby Meena soon joined that household of three women. The child's father was not in the picture.

Kamala helped raise Meena but Maya's pregnancy is a period in their lives that neither Harris sister talks about.

Like her older sister, Maya pursued a career in law, graduating from Stanford University law school in 1992.

She worked as a litigator and taught law classes before joining the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Northern California, where she became executive director in 2006. She also served as vice president of the Ford Foundation and was a policy adviser to Hillary Clinton in her 2016 campaign.

In the 2020 presidential race, Maya was chairwoman of Kamala's failed presidential campaign. Kamala dropped out ahead of the Iowa caucuses before a single vote was cast.

Staff infighting was reported to be the cause of Harris' dysfunctional campaign. And Maya was criticized for her role in the ugliness.

Democratic sources have confirmed to DailyMail.com that they still hold Maya responsible, accusing her of pushing her big sister's political positions even further left than those of proudly socialist senator Bernie Sanders, who was also running.

As a Politico article about the doomed presidential run concluded at the time, Maya had been 'involved in virtually every facet of the race'. 

Or, to put it another way, it was a train wreck of a campaign and Maya was one of the conductors driving it off the rails.

Maya is not involved in Harris' 2024 campaign in an official role but she did speak at the Democratic National Convention. And no doubt she remains a sounding board for her sister.

It's unclear if she would have an official role in a Harris administration but Maya will be one of voices Kamala Harris listens to the most – no matter what her title.

Tony West – brother-in-law

In 1998, Tony West married Maya Harris and became Meena Harris' stepfather.

He and Maya met when they were both students at Stanford University.

A lawyer active in Democratic politics, he went on to serve as the third highest-ranking official in former President Barack Obama's Justice Department, under Attorney General Eric Holder.

He is currently the chief legal officer at Uber.

When Kamala Harris was named Joe Biden's running mate for the 2020 election, Maya was reportedly hard at work behind the scenes promoting her husband Tony for the role of Biden's attorney general.

Those efforts were ultimately fruitless, but West, 59, is clearly an ambitious man.

West is currently on leave from his role as senior vice president and chief legal officer of Uber, telling staff in an internal email in August that he will be concentrating instead on 'supporting my family and my sister-in-law on the campaign trail'.

He is said to be a key adviser to Kamala Harris' current campaign, a regular presence on Air Force Two and a liaison between the vice president and a wary business community.

'The campaign leadership is a collaborative effort, but Tony West is probably the most guiding hand there,' said Bakari Sellers, a CNN commentator and former South Carolina legislator close to the Harris campaign. 

'There's nothing that happens in the campaign that he's not part of.'

A person close to West told the Wall Street Journal earlier this month that he has no plans to join a future Harris administration, but many in Washington suspect that Kamala will want to keep her brother-in-law close regardless.

Meena Harris – niece

Meena Harris, 40, has spent the last seven years building a for-profit business tied to the empowerment of women and underrepresented communities.

But that work, which has come under scrutiny during Kamala Harris' time as vice president, is likely to face even more criticism if her aunt becomes president.

Meena has tried to balance her private ventures with her family's political career but has come dangerously close to crossing the line.

She is close to her aunt Kamala. Meena was born to Maya Harris when Maya was a single, teenaged mother. Kamala Harris helped raise her niece and has aided her career.

Kamala, Maya and Meena are described as inseparable.

As Harris rose on California's political scene, Meena, who graduated from Stamford in 2006, was taking top jobs at some of Silicon Valley's top companies, including Facebook and Slack.

In 2009, she started Harvard Law School and then went on to clerk for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

After that, she worked at the law firm Covington & Burling, the high-power D.C. law firm filled with well-connected lawyers, where her stepfather's former boss Eric Holder had ties. She also worked as Head of Strategy & Leadership at Uber where her stepfather Tony West is chief legal officer.

Meena later started a T-shirt line that began as a charitable endeavor. It took off when she got family friend Tyra Banks to wear one. She eventually developed the Phenomenal Woman Action Campaign, a media and merchandising company.

She wrote two children's book about her aunt Kamala and, when Kamala became vice president, sold a sweatshirt with her name on it.

Those actions caught the attention of the White House, which made it clear they didn't like that she was personally profiting from Kamala Harris' public office. One Biden White House official told the Los Angeles Times: 'Behavior needs to change.'

Nikolas Ajagu – Meena's husband

Meena married former Facebook executive Nik Ajagu, in 2014. The couple has two daughters.

They met when they were each working at Facebook. Nikolas is of Nigerian descent. His father immigrated from the African nation to the U.S.

Nikolas attended Princeton University where he received his undergraduate degree in 2005. He holds a BA degree in Social Anthropology.

At Princeton, Ajagu served as president of the Ivy Club and participated in the university's basketball and football programs.

He worked at Facebook from 2014 to 2019.

He has founded several startups including Barrel & Ink, which connects wine enthusiasts with access to limited-run wines from the best winemakers.

Nikolas became the subject of internet interest after the 2021 inauguration ceremony, where he wore Dior Air Jordan sneakers worth $2,200.

Dior and Jordan Brand released only 8,500 pairs of the costly kicks, which sold out immediately.

Amara Ajagu, 8 and Leela Ajagu, 6 – grand nieces

Kamala Harris was with her great nieces Amara and Leela when Joe Biden called her to say he was dropping out of the presidential race.

The two girls are the daughters of Meena and Nikolas Ajagu.

And the Harris clan are already bringing the next generation of women into the political fold.

The two girls joined actress Kerry Washington on stage on the final night of the Democratic National Convention to help teach the room how to properly pronounce Kamala's name.

Amara started off the explanation, noting the first part was 'comma, like a comma in a sentence.' Leela took over, saying the second half was 'luh' as if you were singing the scales of a song.

A New York Times photo of Leela watching her great aunt's acceptance speech at the convention went viral. In an August interview with CNN, Harris said she was 'deeply touched' by the photo.

It was not the girls' first time in the political spotlight.

At the 2021 inauguration, where Harris was sworn in as vice president, the girls wore custom, faux-fur leopard coats designed to look like one Harris had as a child.

Doug Emhoff - husband

Doug Emhoff, 60, is the first Jewish person to serve as the spouse of a nationally elected U.S. leader.

He is the first second gentleman and, if his wife wins the White House, he will be the nation's first first gentleman.

Emhoff and Harris met via a blind date in 2013, while she was serving as California's attorney general and he was an entertainment lawyer in Los Angeles. They were married the following year at the Santa Barbara courthouse.

Emhoff wore a flower garland around his neck to honor Kamala's Indian heritage. At the end of the ceremony they smashed a glass per Emhoff's Jewish tradition.

He has presented himself as supportive of his wife's career but he hasn't denied stories, broken by DailyMail.com, that he slapped his ex-girlfriend and had an affair during his first marriage.

DailyMail.com exclusively reported in August that Emhoff cheated on his first wife, Kerstin, and got the family's nanny pregnant. Emhoff later acknowledged the affair but noted he and Kerstin remain friends. She released a statement of support for him.

DailyMail.com also revealed Emhoff 'slapped' an ex-girlfriend at the Cannes Film Festival in 2012. He also faced allegations he was a 'misogynist' to colleagues at the Los Angeles law firm he ran.

That story included a claim he hired an 'unqualified' part-time model as a legal secretary 'because she was young, attractive and friendly with the powerful men in the office'.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Emhoff spent his youth in New Jersey. He left his legal job – where he became a millionaire as a partner in the prestigious firm - when Harris became vice president. He now teaches a class on entertainment law at Georgetown law.

As second gentleman, he has become the face of the Biden administration's fight against the global rise in antisemitism.

The father of two from his first marriage, he has his children's initials tattooed on his left wrist.

Cole Emhoff – stepson

Kamala Harris became stepmother to Emhoff's two children when they married. They call her 'Momala.' 

Harris and Emhoff remain close to his first wife and the trio parents together.

Cole, 30, the eldest Emhoff child, followed his father into the entertainment industry, with jobs at talent agency WME and, later, Brad Pitt's production company Plan B. 

He graduated from Colorado College in 2017 with a degree in psychology

He was named after jazz legend John Coltrane.

Harris officiated at his wedding to Greenley Littlejohn in 2023. The couple lives in Los Angeles.

Ella Emhoff – stepdaughter

Ella Emhoff, 25, became fashion's newest darling after the Miu Miu coat she wore at the 2021 inauguration ceremony went viral.

Shortly after she became the newest face at IMG Models, one of the world's biggest modeling agencies.

She has walked runways of New York Fashion week with her Secret Service detail nearby.

Ella, who graduated from the Parsons School of Design in New York City, is also an artist and a prolific knitter. She launched the knitwear brand and club Soft Hands in 2021.

She studied fine arts with a concentrated focus on apparel and textiles. In the spring of 2021, she launched a limited collection of knitwear, with Batsheva Hay.

In 2014, she made a cameo appearance in the music video for Bo Burnham's song 'Repeat Stuff'.

She has over two dozen tattoos, which include eggs and bacon in the shape of a smiley face and a cow. 

She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

She is the most political of the two siblings and has defended Harris in the political arena. She spoke at the 2024 Democratic National Convention.

And, in July 2024, when an interview from Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance, in which he criticized 'childless cat ladies' resurfaced, Ella weighed in.

'How can you be 'childless' when you have cutie pie kids like cole and I,' Emhoff wrote on her Instagram Stories. 'I love my three parents.'

Kerstin Emhoff – Doug's ex-wife

Kerstin Emhoff came to Kamala Harris's defense when J.D. Vance's 'childless cat lady' comments resurfaced.

'For over 10 years, since Cole and Ella were teenagers, Kamala has been a co-parent with Doug and I,' Kerstin said in a statement to CNN. 

'She is loving, nurturing, fiercely protective, and always present. I love our blended family and am grateful to have her in it.'

Kerstin also defended her ex-husband when it was revealed Doug cheated on her with the nanny.

She and Emhoff married in 1992 and divorced 16 years later after Doug cheated on her. The couple say they remain friends and split the responsibilities of raising their two children with Kamala.

She was at the Democratic National Convention this summer, standing beside her two children and her ex. She also attended the 2021 inauguration ceremony when Harris was sworn in as vice president.

She is a film producer and the founder and CEO of production company Prettybird. Her company produces documentaries and, in 2012, she won a News & Documentary Emmy Award.