A CHILD OF OUR TIME

If her stepmother wins the presidency, 25-year-old artist and model Ella Emhoff will destroy the cookie-cutter stereotypes surrounding children of politicians, writes Katie Rosseinsky

- Katie Rosseinsky

Earlier this month, an old interview with Republican vice-presidential hopeful JD Vance resurfaced online. In it, Vance denounced vice-president Kamala Harris as a "childless cat lady" with no "direct stake" in America's future. His words prompted outrage and among the first to rush to Harris's defence was her 25-year-old stepdaughter, Ella Emhoff. "How can you be - ‘childless’ when you have cutie pie kids like Cole and I?” she wrote in an Instagram story.

Her comment was a testament to her and her older brother Cole’s warm bond with the woman they call “Momala” – and proved that family isn’t just about biological relationships. If Harris, who was endorsed by US president Joe Biden after he announced he’d no longer be seeking re-election, does end up in the White House, then Ella will be a very modern first daughter.

An artist, activist and alternative fashion icon, she feels worlds away from the classic, cookie-cutter stereotype of a political offspring – who smiles politely in photo ops, dresses and acts conservatively, and shies away from any remotely controversial causes.

Ella was born in California in 1999, and has the jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald as her namesake (Her brother, who is five years her senior, was named after the saxophonist John Coltrane). Her parents, film producer Kerstin and entertainment lawyer Doug Emhoff, split up in 2008, but the breakup was an amicable one. “I thought we had it good compared to a lot of other people I’d seen with divorced parents,” Ella told The New York Times in 2021. “So I think I felt really lucky.”

She and her brother were politically engaged from a young age, and were “really active” in campaigning against Proposition 8, the amendment opposing same-sex marriage. As a teen, Ella attended Wildwood School, a private school that also counts celebrity offspring such as Rumer Willis and Frances Bean Cobain among its alumni.