Don’t call her the girlfriend (too transient, too youthful), the consort or the partner — and definitelynotthe companion.
“Nobody’s come up with the language around what we are,” Diana Taylor,Mike Bloomberg‘s longtime — err — other half, toldThe Washington Postlast week in a rare interview about their 20-year relationship,the 2020 presidential raceand Bloomberg’s unorthodox push for the presidency.
“I’m a unicorn in a unicorn campaign,” Taylor, 65, told thePostin a Feb. 6 article.
Bloomberg, the 77-year-old former New York City mayor and billionaire founder of an eponymous business news company, launched his campaign in November, nearly a year after the rest of the Democratic field of candidates and only months before voting in the primary began.
Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty
Taylor has spent the last few months campaigning alongside Bloomberg, at his side or as his surrogate.
An experienced businesswoman who, like Bloomberg, went from being a Republican to a Democrat, she has appeared at rallies, town hall meetings with potential voters and has done her share of community outreach on the campaign’s behalf, visiting local hospitals and schools.
“He is a man of incredible capabilities and resources,” she told thePost. “I’ve always thought that he’d be a really good president.”
They first met at a business luncheon in 2000, according to thePost. Later that night, they crossed paths at a restaurant and he asked her to have a drink.
She and Bloomberg do not have kids together. “I never had kids because there was never anyone I wanted to have kids with,” she told thePost, calling herself a “sort of a step-whatever for Mike’s [two] children — friend, I guess.”
“I define myself first and foremost as I’ve had a fairly successful career,” she said.
From left: Michael Bloomberg and Diana Taylor in 2000.Richard Corkery/NY Daily News Archive via Getty
Taylor appears honest about Bloomberg’s political flaws, too.
With his decision to enter the 2020 race, his record has again come under scrutiny — including his past defense of the controversial “stop and frisk” policing policy that disproportionately targeted minorities and, more recently,when the Associated Press reported this weekthat he had seemingly blamed the 2008 housing crisis on anti-discrimination policies.
In herPostinterview, Taylor said stop and frisk “was horrible.”
“It affected people’s lives in a very negative way,” she said. “But the reason he was doing it was to stop people from being killed.”
Taylor, an Ivy League educated advocate with decades of experience working on Wall Street and sitting on financial boards for companies like Citigroup, has often taken on the role of promoting Bloomberg’s ability to lead and run a public office.
Even so, longtime friend andVogueeditor Anna Wintour told thePost, “Her famous boyfriend may be the least interesting thing about her.”
“She’s intelligent, independent — and completely her own person,” Wintour said. “Michael is lucky to have her.”
source: people.com
