Former talk show host Montel Williams, 70, has kept the details of his early-2000s relationship with Vice President Kamala Harris locked away for decades—until now. During a Monday, July 6 appearance on the“On Par With Maury Povich”podcast, Williams finally addressed the romance that briefly made headlines when pictures of him and Harris surfaced in 2020, just after she was elected vice president-elect.
The two dated when Harris, now 61, was working as an attorney for the city of San Francisco, back when Williams was riding high from his syndicated talk show, which ran from 1991 to 2008. A rare red carpet photo of them together at the 2001 Race to Erase Multiple Sclerosis gala in Los Angeles went viral years later, catching both of them—and probably plenty of news cycles—by surprise.“It was crazy. It was absolutely insane,”Williams recalled of seeing those images resurface.“I was like,‘Oh my goodness.’But you know, you can’t erase your past. You embrace your past.”
Beyond the nostalgia, Williams used the platform to weigh in on Harris’s failed 2024 presidential bid against Donald Trump. His take? Timing was everything. Harris’s campaign launched just four months before the election, after President Joe Biden announced in July 2024 that he wouldn’t seek a second term.“I didn’t think that it was going to work out,”Williams said.“I think the lateness of the campaign was really, really what hurt her.”He also acknowledged what he sees as a deeper challenge: Harris faced misconceptions about who she is, despite being, in his view,“one of the smartest people I think I’ve ever met in my life.”
Yet Williams didn’t shy away from a bolder claim. He believes America simply isn’t ready to elect a woman as president in the near future.“People can get as mad at me as you want. Anybody out there who thinks that America is gonna elect a woman in the next four or five years, you are crazy,”he said bluntly.“I don’t care what woman it is. I’m just gonna say that. And you know, maybe that makes people angry. I could care less if you get angry. I don’t think America’s ready for that.”
The commentary is striking because Williams genuinely credits Harris—acknowledging that she“could have done a good job”as president and calling her one of the smartest people he’s known. His critique isn’t personal; it’s structural and cultural. He’s arguing that circumstances, timing, and a nation’s electoral readiness mattered far more than Harris’s qualifications or intelligence. Whether you agree with his assessment or not, it’s a reminder that sometimes it takes someone willing to say the unpopular part out loud to surface what others are thinking.
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Local Lawton
Local Lawton is a contributor to LocalBeat, covering local news and community stories.