Bloomberg's longtime girlfriend Diana Taylor is a fashion icon, featured on Vanity Fair's best-dressed list
Michael Bloomberg's longtime girlfriend Diana Taylor hit headlines recently, but for all the wrong reasons, resulting in the billionaire's own campaigners distancing themselves from her.
Bloomberg, who stuck a foot in the door to enter the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, had found himself in hot water after it emerged that he had asked women in his company to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) over sexual harassment claims they had made against him. Turns out, while defending the former New York mayor, Taylor, dismissed concerns over the NDAs during an interview with CBS this past Monday, February 24, and asked the naysayers to "get over it."
"It was 30 years ago, get over it," she said. "In none of them was he accused of doing anything, saying something nasty to a woman. That is not who he is. Life has changed. I grew up in that world. It was a bro culture."
"We have come a very, very long way, and Michael Bloomberg has been at the forefront of that change."
The interview tellingly came just after a 'Women for Mike' rally in Texas, and the Bloomberg campaign moved quickly to suggest that Taylor's remarks were just her personal view.
"Diana offered her personal view from her forty years working in finance, not the view of the campaign," said Erin McPike, a Bloomberg campaign spokesperson.
But who exactly is Taylor, and how has she come to hold such a significant sway in Bloomberg's push for the presidential nomination?
The 65-year-old met Bloomberg at a Citizens Budget Commission event in 2000, where they were seated together. Bloomberg, at that point, was seven years removed from his divorce from Susan Brown after 20 years of marriage, and the pair struck a chord.
They have been together since, with Taylor acting as the unofficial first lady for New York City during Bloomberg's time as mayor and joining him at social functions and on the campaign trail.
She has been frequently photographed marching with him citywide, and during the 2005 New York City transit strike, also stayed with him in the City's Office of Emergency Management headquarters in Brooklyn each night of the strike.
Taylor is highly qualified with quite some experience in the political sphere. She earned an A.B. in Economics from Dartmouth College, an MPH from Columbia University, and an MBA from Columbia Business School, before going to serve as an assistant secretary to then-New York Governor George Pataki in 1996.
She also served as a deputy secretary in the same administration and rose to the position of chief advisor on finance and housing issues. In May 2003, she was appointed the New York state superintendent of banks, in which capacity she headed the New York State Banking Department and chaired the New York State Banking Board.
Despite her relationship with Bloomberg, she was not always a Democrat, as is also evidenced by her role in Pataki's administration. In 2010, she was reportedly urged by New York State Republicans to run for the Senate and take the seat held by Kirsten Gillibrand.
She revealed later in an interview that she considered it, but eventually decided against it. "The Senate Republicans basically asked me to run and I thought about it, talked to a lot of people," she shared. "But then when I really thought about it, what attracted me to the idea was the race because I knew I could win that race. It was the thought of actually having to go and do that job, that was really not all that appealing."
She re-registered as a Democrat only in 2018 as Bloomberg began considering running for the White House. Since then, she has taken an active part in his campaign.
"I'm really looking forward to the debate tonight because everybody will see Michael [Bloomberg] as he really is," she said before the first Democratic debate in Nevada. "And look out November, because he's going to be the President of the United States."
Beyond her professional accomplishments, Taylor is also well-regarded for her style and taste in clothes. During her time dating Bloomberg, she had been awarded a spot on Vanity Fair's International Best Dressed List on two separate occasions.
She is also a woman of quirks. Taylor recently stated that she regarded herself as a "unicorn" instead of a girlfriend. "Nobody's come up with the language around what we are," she said of her relationship with Bloomberg. "I'm a unicorn in a unicorn campaign."