Less than a month after The Daily Mail published its explosive report alleging Doug Emhoff forcefully slapped an ex-girlfriend so hard she “spun around” while waiting in a valet line outside the amFAR Gala in Cannes, France, the woman at the center of the story is speaking out.
The accuser, who The Daily Mail has been referring to as ‘Jane’ to maintain her anonymity, initially declined to comment on the record. But the successful New York attorney said she changed her mind after watching Emhoff continue to portray himself as a feminist and “wife guy” in the media.
She has now shared first-person details about the relationship and the incident with The Daily Mail. And on Friday’s show, Megyn was joined by Steve Hilton, host of The Steve Hilton Show, to discuss the latest revelations and whether the media will acknowledge them.
The Initial Red Flags
The story about Jane, which was supported by three contemporaneous witnesses and paper receipts, came on the heels onThe Daily Mail uncovering Emhoff had an affair with his daughter’s nanny, Najen Naylor, while married to his first wife, Kerstin Emhoff. The woman reportedly became pregnant during the dalliance.
Emhoff denied Jane’s allegations in a statement from an unnamed spokesperson, but he was forced to admit to the relationship with Naylor. All the while, the second gentleman has played along with the press as they branded him the paragon of non-toxic masculinity.
“What’s frightening for a woman that’s been on the other end of it is watching this completely fabricated persona being portrayed,” Jane told The Daily Mail. “He’s being held out to be the antithesis of who he actually is, and that is utterly shocking.”
Jane’s Allegations
As Jane explained, she met Emhoff on Match.com in early 2012 (he went on to marry Kamala Harris in 2014) when she lived in New York and he was based in Los Angeles. The “odd” behavior began almost immediately, she said, after he had his son Cole join them about an hour into their first date at a hotel bar near Times Square in March 2012.
She admitted it should have been a “red flag,” but the pair went on to have an “intense few months” of dating that included Emhoff discussing marriage and children after just a couple of weeks. “He was totally love-bombing me,” Jane told The Daily Mail. “He grabbed me round the stomach and talked about wanting more babies.”
During a trip to L.A. in April 2012, Jane said she asked Emhoff about his divorce after getting the impression he still felt a debt to his ex-wife. “We were in Santa Monica. He was driving his fancy car… All I did was ask him one question, and he told me the whole story,” Jane recalled. “Without skipping a beat, and staring straight ahead at the road, he tells me he had an affair with his daughter’s teacher and that subsequently she claimed that she was pregnant. He’s telling me this very casually like it’s no big deal.”
Jane said Emhoff admitted to yelling at Naylor but not hitting her. “He said he got really angry with her, and she subsequently claimed that whatever he did caused her to lose the pregnancy,” she said. “He said she got a lawyer and was threatening litigation… He tried to minimize it… He tried to make it seem like she was scamming him.”
At that point, Jane said she had met Emhoff’s parents and children and “wanted to believe him,” though she said she “did harbor reservations.” She decided to go ahead with their planned trip to Cannes because she had already invited him and paid for it.
The Alleged Slap
While she called the trip a “fairytale” at first, it turned dark around 3am when they got in a chaotic taxi line outside the event. “I decided I’m going to go up to the valet and give them 100 bucks, to get out of this line,” Jane said. “As I’m talking to him, Doug got out of the line, comes up, turns me around by my right shoulder. I’m completely caught off guard, I’m not bracing, I’m in four inch heels, wearing a full-length gown… He slaps me so hard I spin around, and I’m in utter shock.”
As Jane explained, there was “no fight, no argument” and the only thing she “could think to do was slap him back.” She slapped him on both cheeks. “In that moment, his mask had dropped and I saw his dark side,” she said. “The only thing I could get out of him was he thought I was hitting on the valet.”
She said Emhoff remained unapologetic the next day and the two never spoke again after the trip. “I had never really wanted to talk about Doug slapping me, to be honest with you, because I was with him for a few months, it was this one moment. And it was enough to wake me up and leave,” she told The Daily Mail. “In retrospect, it was the best thing that could possibly have happened because his mask dropped, and I realized I shouldn’t waste another moment with him.”
Jane also recounted how she felt when she learned Emhoff was dating Harris, who was then-attorney general of California, and what it was like to watch Harris grill Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh about alleged sexual assault in his 2018 confirmation hearing, which is detailed in the full Daily Mail report.
Media Malaise
Megyn said she finds Jane’s story credible. “She is a successful attorney, she is married now, she has a great life, and she is going to have a shitstorm rained down on her if she attaches her name to these allegations, but I believe this woman entirely,” she said. “She is putting the story out there first-person… and she knows very well she is going to get sued for defamation if this isn’t true. No suit has been forthcoming.”
What has stood out to Hilton in the wake of all The Daily Mail reporting about Emhoff is the virtual blackout from corporate media. “The point is the lack of curiosity about this from the media… and the fact that the champions of women’s rights and all of that stuff are just so casual about this and recoil when anyone even tries to bring it up,” he noted. “We saw that the other night on CNN. They tried to shut it down. Imagine if this was the other way around.”
In Megyn’s view, this story will likely remain on the fringes as long as Jane remains anonymous. “I don’t think it is going to actually have much traction if she doesn’t come out and put her name to it,” she explained. “If you know her name and you see her testimonial, it is very hard to just dismiss it. But because she is anonymous and it is in The Daily Mail – who I love – they can just say, ‘Oh, whatever.'”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Hilton by tuning in to episode 926 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.