FAMILY TIES

Kamala Harris’ Father Turned Down an Invitation to Her Wedding

Donald J. Harris also declined an invite to attend the inauguration in January 2021.

Kamala Harris’ estranged father didn’t attend her wedding even after he was extended an invitation, The New York Times reports. Harris’ parents, Shyamala Gopalan and Donald J. Harris, met as graduate students at U.C. Berkeley in 1962 and married after a year together. Harris was born two years later, followed by her younger sister, Maya, but the couple split up when Kamala Harris was 5. The future Democratic nominee felt a deep sense of loss and had internalized her mother’s bitterness about the divorce, the Times reports. In 2014, when Kamala Harris married Doug Emhoff in a small ceremony in Santa Barbara, Donald Harris decided not to attend. He sent his daughter a congratulatory note when she was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2016, but just a month later, he publicly criticized her for making a joke about Jamaica during an interview. He also congratulated her when she was elected vice president, though he declined an invitation to attend the inauguration.