Rumors Surrounding Kamala Harris's Former Relationship With Willie Brown Have Been Greatly Exaggerated
It's not that deep, folks.
Published Aug. 13 2024, 1:48 p.m. ET
The presidential election of 2024 was already going to be a dramatic one when the United States was poised to have to choose between two elderly and increasingly old men to lead the country for the next four years. However, the race received a shot in the arm when Joe Biden stepped out of the race in an unprecedented upset mere months before Election Day. He's set to be replaced by current VP Kamala Harris.
Throughout the campaign's early stages, the GOP has found very few angles of attack to lobby against Harris. Her past relationship with Willie Brown has been one such talking point.
Kamala Harris did have a relationship with Willie Brown, but she did not break up his marriage for political gain.
As Harris's campaign began picking up speed, posts began appearing on platforms like TikTok and Facebook alleging that she started her career by sleeping with Willie Brown and breaking up his marriage. The accusations are highly exaggerated, wildly misogynistic, and —surprise surprise — completely wrong.
It's true that Harris was in a relationship with politician Willie Brown between 1994 and 1995. She was a deputy district attorney for Alameda County in California at the time and Brown had appointed her to two different commissions.
However, this took place several years after he'd separated from his ex-wife. According to Fact Check.org, Brown married a woman named Blanche Vitero in 1957 and had three kids with her. They separated in 1981 or 1982 after Brown was frequently caught with other women.
Their separation took place years before he and Harris began dating. As for their relationship, they stopped dating in 1996 with Kamala even later calling him "an albatross around [her] neck" to SF Weekly. On influencing her career in the past, Brown had also written an op-ed for the San Francisco Chronicle stating that he'd done the same with other politicians such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Governor Gavin Newsom without their careers being squeezed for a desperate scandal.
Surprisingly, this wouldn't be the first time Willie Brown's name was brought up during the 2024 election season. In his infamously terrible press Mar-a-Lago press conference, Donald Trump claimed that he'd once been in a helicopter with Willie Brown when it began to crash. During said crash, Brown reportedly opened up about how terrible Harris was during their relationship before the chopper safely landed. Brown would later confirm that he'd never been in a chopper with Trump in his life, much less a crashing one.
But hey, if we're really gonna bring up defunct romances in the middle of a presidential campaign, where has Melania been?
