Photo: Getty
Taylor and Bloomberg have been together since 2000.
By Rebekah Kuschmider — Written on Aug 20, 2020
Former presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg will be speaking tonight at the 2020 Democratic National Convention, and although he's been in the public eye for decades now, he usually keeps his private life in the background.
He prefers to focus on policy issues or his business when he is in front of the cameras. That's why not many people know that he has been in a relationship with the former New York Superintendent of Banks since 2000.
Who is Michael Bloomberg's girlfriend, Diana Taylor?
Diana Taylor worked in the financial sector before working for former New York Governor George Pataki, a Republican. She went back to the private sector in 2007, though she considered running for the Senate in 2010.
All that time, she has been living with Bloomberg and was considered the de facto first lady of New York City while he was mayor. She was often photographed with him at official functions and she sat with his family at his second inauguration.
Who is Diana Taylor?
Taylor grew up in Connecticut, the daughter of a scientist and a school teacher. She never expected to have a life in finance or public service. “Growing up, I imagined I would come to New York, get married, move to the suburbs and have kids,” she said in an interview. “It just didn’t happen that way.”
Instead, she went to Dartmouth for her undergraduate years then got an MBA and studied public health at Columbia. She briefly worked at the New York City Department of Social Services before going into the financial sector. At 30, she got married to a friend of her brother's, Dr. Jefferson Katims, but the marriage ended after six years and the couple had no children.
What does Diana Taylor do?
After stints at Smith Barney, Lehman Brothers and Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette, Taylor got a job as an assistant secretary to New York Governor George Pataki. She served in various capacities in his administration, advising him on financial services and housing issues before he nominated her as Superintendent of Banks in 2003, a massive job when you consider that banking in New York state includes overseeing Wall Street institutions.
She remained in that role until 2007, just before the banking crisis reached such a dire situation that the federal government had to bail them all out. After that, she returned to the private sector as managing director at Wolfensohn Fund Management.
How did Michael Bloomberg and Diana Taylor meet?
Taylor met Bloomberg at a luncheon in 2000. At the time, she was a registered Republican and working for KeySpan Energy. Bloomberg had recently switched his political affiliation from Democrat to Republican in order to run to replace outgoing mayor Rudy Giuliani.
The couple were seated together at a Citizen's Commission event and discovered they had a lot in common. “[T]heir interests were very much aligned,” a friend of Taylor's said of the couple. “She offered, at that point, private-sector experience and time in government that he definitely did not have.”
Taylor and Bloomberg with his daughter Georgina at the Met Gala in 2019.
When did Bloomberg divorce his first wife, Susan Brown?
Their relationship was no scandal when it started. Taylor's marriage had been over since 1991 and Bloomberg had split from his first wife Susan Brown in 1993. Brown, a British national, met Bloomberg while she was temping at Salomon Brothers, where he worked at the time. They married in 1976 and share two children, Georgina and Emma.
Their marriage suffered because of the demands of Bloomberg's business and all the socializing he did to build his empire. "They were not getting along because their lives are not compatible," daughter Emma Bloomberg told reporters. "My mother doesn't want to be social all of the time. She was perfectly happy to curl up with a book and not go out all week."
While the former Mrs. Bloomberg seldom grants interviews, their daughters say the exes remain good friends. Brown even volunteered for Bloomberg's first mayoral campaign.
"My parents' divorce was one of the best things that ever happened to me," said Emma. "It made my relationship with both of my parents stronger. My parents are best friends. Nobody understands that until they actually see it." Brown even lived in a house Bloomberg owned for years after their divorce.
Diana Taylor is a fashion icon.
Absolutely. Taylor, who is significantly taller than her significant other, is known for her classily elegant taste in clothes. Since she started appearing in public with the much-photographed billionaire, her style choices have landed her on Vanity Fair's International Best Dressed List twice.
Her look is entirely her own, too. When a reporter asked who her stylist was she replied, "My what? Stylist? You’re talking to her!”
Did Diana Taylor run for Senate?
In 2010, Republicans in New York State urged Taylor to make a run for the Senate, trying to win the seat held by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. At the time, Democrats controlled the chamber. Taylor says she considered the idea but ultimately decided against it.
“I really thought being a junior member of a minority party was not going to have an effect on people’s lives,” she said in an interview years later. She also acknowledged that it might not have been ideal for her relationship with Bloomberg, who, by that time, had switched his affiliation to independent prior to running for his second term as mayor. "[T]wo politicians living in the same city, and in the same house: that was going to be really complicated,” she said.
What is Diana Taylor's net worth?
While it is unclear what Diana Taylor's exact net worth is, Michael Bloomberg's net worth is reportedly just shy of $55 million.
Rebekah Kuschmider has been writing about celebrities, pop culture, entertainment, and politics since 2010. She is the creator of the blog FeminXer and she is a cohost of the weekly podcast The More Perfect Union.