Doug Emhoff, Husband of Kamala Harris, Acknowledges Long-Ago Affair

Doug Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, said on Saturday that he had an extramarital affair during his first marriage, years before he met Ms. Harris.

The acknowledgment, which was released in a statement, came hours after a British tabloid reported that Mr. Emhoff had a previously undisclosed relationship with a teacher who worked at the elementary school his children attended in Culver City, Calif., approximately 15 years ago.

At the time, Mr. Emhoff, an entertainment lawyer, was married to Kerstin Emhoff, a film producer, with whom he had two children. The couple filed for divorce in 2009. Mr. Emhoff met Ms. Harris in 2013, and they married the following year.

“During my first marriage, Kerstin and I went through some tough times on account of my actions,” Mr. Emhoff said in the statement. “I took responsibility, and in the years since, we worked through things as a family and have come out stronger on the other side.”

The Biden campaign was aware of the affair before it decided to tap Ms. Harris as vice president in 2020, according to a person familiar with the vetting process, who spoke on condition of anonymity. In addition, this person said that Ms. Harris knew of the affair before she married Mr. Emhoff in 2014.

According to an article published by The Daily Mail on Saturday, Mr. Emhoff had the relationship with a woman who at the time worked as a teacher at The Willows Community School, a private school in west Los Angeles.