Who is Glenn Greenwald's husband David Miranda? How love at first sight in Brazil blossomed into same-sex marriage
Glenn Greenwald has been making headlines after his controversial resignation from The Intercept. In a bombshell revelation on how a Joe Biden article led to his fallout with the media organization he co-founded in 2014, the 53-year-old wrote, “My resignation from The Intercept. The same trends of repression, censorship and ideological homogeneity plaguing the national press generally have engulfed the media outlet I co-founded, culminating in censorship of my own articles.”
He added: “The final, precipitating cause is that The Intercept’s editors censored an article I wrote this week, refusing to publish it unless I remove all sections critical of Joe Biden, the candidate vehemently supported by all Intercept editors involved in this effort at suppression.” His tweets soon grabbed many eyeballs and garnered over 29,000 retweets and 80,000 likes.
"The final, precipitating cause is that The Intercept’s editors censored an article I wrote this week, refusing to publish it unless I remove all sections critical of Joe Biden, the candidate vehemently supported by all Intercept editors involved in this effort at suppression."
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) October 29, 2020
The winner of a George Polk Award and a Pulitzer Prize, Greenwald is best known for his coverage on the Edward Snowden archive in 2014 and the Intercept’s Brazil Archive over the last year showing corruption by high-level Bolsonaro officials. Claiming that his article was heavily edited before being published, he has now featured the original version titled 'The Real Scandal: US Media Uses Falsehoods To Defend Joe Biden From Hunter's Emails' on his own website — Substack.
Amid all the controversy and mixed reactions, let's take a dip into his personal life. Here's all about his early life and marriage.
Who is Glenn Greenwald?
Born on March 6, 1967, he was raised in New York City by Arlene and Daniel Greenwald. When he was young, Greenwald watched the world of politics with wonder after his family moved to Lauderdale Lakes, Florida, where his grandfather served as a city councilman. He attended Nova Middle School and Nova High School in Davie, Florida, where he joined the debate team, and during his senior year, at 17, he decided to run for city council.
“In high school, I forged my own path,” he told Buzzfeed in an interview. By 25, he knew politics wasn't his cup of tea. Greenwald said, “In politics, you need a desire and ability to please large numbers of people. That's definitely not in my interests and not what I do well.” He received a BA in philosophy from George Washington University in 1990 and a JD from New York University School of Law in 1994.
In October of 2005, Greenwald started a political and legal blog, Unclaimed Territory and a year later, he wrote his first book. Before becoming a journalist, he started his career as a constitutional law and civil rights litigator.
Who was his previous partner Werner Achatz?
In 1994, Greenwald was looking for an apartment in Manhattan with his then partner, Werner Achatz. A landlord — at a building on 29th Street and Third Avenue — needed a minimum amount to be met and while they couldn't meet it separately, they passed it together. The landlord didn't accept that, because they weren't married and also because they couldn't be married.
Greenwald eventually asked his father in Florida to co-sign on the lease, “which was demeaning and outrageous.” The two moved in and sued their new landlord for broken elevators in their building. They moved into another building in Midtown Manhattan and countersued after being sued by the new landlord for having a dog that weighed more than 35 pounds. Did you know they also sued American Airlines and its parent company for not placing the right number of miles flown in their frequent-flier account?
Greenwald also worked in the adult entertainment industry at a company named 'MN' (Master Notions) Entertainment's legal and consultancy arm. After two years, he quit the company and his relationship with Achatz ended after the two moved their own ways.
How did Glenn Greenwald meet David Miranda?
His life took a new turn on his vacation in Brazil where he first locked eyes with David Michael Miranda. “I was going to take two months off, come to Rio, take my dog with me, and figure out what I wanted to do next in my life. I didn't have any plan at all,” he told Buzzfeed. On the beach, he met Miranda, then 19, in what was just his second day there.
“We instantly fell in love. We just knew from the moment that we met. We had this really intense bond. Once that happened, I knew he couldn't come and live in the US with me, so my only choice was to stay in Rio. That kind of forced me to give up my law practice and figure out what came next,” Greenwald said. He lives in Rio's Gavea neighborhood, on a permanent visa with Miranda — now a Congressman with the left-wing PSOL party — and their 24 rescued dogs.
Back then in 2011, the Supreme Court ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional and that the federal government must recognize same-sex marriages that are already considered legal by states. At the time, Greenwald said, “We feel extraordinary. This is the decision that we'd been hoping to have for eight years now.” In 2017, Greenwald and Miranda adopted two children, siblings, from Maceió, a city in Northeastern Brazil. In March 2017, Greenwald announced plans to build a shelter with Miranda for stray pets in Brazil that would be staffed by homeless people.