Kamala Harris' Stepdaughter Ella Emhoff Kicks Off 27th Birthday Celebrations with Gal Pal — After Shocking Antidepressants Confession
Ella Emhoff celebrated her birthday early with a pedal boat ride.
May 28 2026, Published 2:45 p.m. ET
Kamala Harris' stepdaughter, Ella Emhoff, got a very L.A. sendoff for her birthday before heading back home to New York City and shared the quirky adventure with fans, RadarOnline.com can reveal.
Emhoff turns 27 on May 29, and the native Angeleno's pal took her on a float aboard Echo Park Lake's swan foot pedal boats, which have become a popular attraction since they were added to the fleet of watercraft in 2018.
Ella Emhoff's L.A. Birthday Sendoff
Emhoff was overjoyed about going for a swan boat trip to Echo Park.
"I'm meeting up with my friend for a picnic before I go back to New York, and she just surprised me for my birthday with tickets to do the swan boats at Echo Park," Emhoff exclaimed in a TikTok video, lifting her hand to cover her face with excitement. The swan boats were added to the lake's attractions a year after Emhoff graduated from a private school in L.A. in 2017 and moved to New York for design school.
The outing was made all the more special as the former model added that her dog, Jerry, was coming along.
The pals had a grassy picnic in the park just west of downtown Los Angeles, including an eclectic array of tortilla chips, avocado, baguette, strawberries, and apricots. Then it was time to hit the water.
Emhoff took plenty of selfies during her swan boat trip.
The ladies had plenty of fun taking selfies aboard the foot-pedal swan boat, which rents for a reasonable $13 per person per hour throughout the day, offering some of the most stunning views of the downtown LA skyline and urban greenery.
The pair's journey soon took them to the three 60-foot-tall jet fountains in the middle of the lake, with Emhoff not interested in getting wet.
"That's not even a f------ splash zone, that's the Sea World soak zone," the Parsons School of Design grad snarked about how drenched they would get if they got too close.
The friends ended their day of wholesome fun with big soft-serve vanilla ice cream cones topped with colorful sprinkles from a park vendor.
"I'm addicted now…" Emhoff wrote in the comments of her video about the swan boating experience.
Ella Emhoff Claps Back About 'Right Wing Propaganda' Regarding Antidepressants
Emhoff recently shared a video clearing up her stance on the use of SSRI medications.
The lighthearted outing was a big change from how Emhoff addressed her stance on antidepressants, after an old video resurfaced featuring her discussing SSRIs, which she felt was now being used to support Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s MAHA stance against the overprescription of the meds.
Captioned, "Addressing the whole SSRI thing because I think it’s getting out of control and being used in a way, I don't want it to," Emhoff described in the May 23 video how the old comments were being used for "RFK right-wing propaganda about SSRIs," and she "just wanted to clear things up."
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Ella Emhoff Claims SSRIs 'Saved My Life 100 Percent'
Emhoff revealed she's been on SSRI medication for a decade.
"I am very pro-SSRIs," Emhoff declared in the new TikTok video, after she discussed in a December 2025 post about how the downside of getting off the medication isn't "talked about enough."
"I do not support the eradication of them at all. They have saved my life 100 percent," the knitwear designer shared, explaining she had been on the antidepressant medication for 10 years.
She added, "All I was trying to say in the video is that I didn’t know how hard it was to get off of them or the actual process of getting off of them, which there is a very healthy way to do it. But I have no plan of getting off of them."
In the video from six months ago, Emhoff said she had listened to a podcast about SSRIs and revealed, "I feel like so many of us are on these meds and...people get off of them and they kind of break down, and it can be really bad."
