Elizabeth Warren and her husband Bruce described their ‘improbable’ origin story
"She completely objectified me."
Everyone knows Bailey.
But now the other guy in Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s life is stepping into the spotlight.
Warren and her husband Bruce Mann recently sat down with CNN at their home in Cambridge for their first joint interview of the 2020 presidential campaign.
Mann, a Harvard Law professor who teaches courses on American legal history, has largely avoided attention amid the ascent of his wife’s campaign in the Democratic primary race. According to CNN, the soft-spoken Hingham native is “unquestionably” Warren’s quieter half. But in their interview published Tuesday, the couple opened up about the history and dynamics of their relationship.
“I don’t want to be married to somebody like me,” Warren said, alluding to their contrasting personalities. “I want to be married to somebody like him.”
On the campaign trail, Warren has often told the story of her first marriage, in which she dropped out of college to marry her high school boyfriend, Jim Warren, at the age of 19. The marriage lasted 10 years. And shortly after they separated, Warren met Mann.
“It was completely improbable,” he said.
In 1979, the two law professors — both 29 at the time — were at the same conference in Key Biscayne, Florida. Mann said he first saw Warren during the opening reception from about 25 yards away.
“Even from that distance, I was just drawn to her,” he said. “She was so lively, so animated, so engaged.”
Essentially love at first sight, according to Mann. For Warren, it wasn’t until the next day that she was attracted to Mann — and for different reasons.
“It was on Monday when I actually saw him in shorts,” Warren told CNN. “And good-looking legs. That’s when I was all in.”
“She completely objectified me,” Mann joked.
(It’s not the first time Warren has cited Mann’s legs as the primary reason she was attracted to him; in her 2014 memoir, Warren wrote that many people “might think that two young law professors would be drawn together because they wanted to talk about law all the time. Nope: I fell in love with Bruce because he had great legs.”)
Anyhow, things picked up quickly from there. According to CNN, they bonded over both growing up in economically insecure households, before making their careers in academia, living in different cities at times before they both landed professorships at Harvard in the 1990s.
Warren was the one to propose, just a few months after they met, after sitting in on one of his classes at the University of Connecticut. After the class, Mann asked what Warren thought. Impressed, she flatly asked him to marry her in response.
“I got to see him in shorts, got to watch him play tennis — got to do all that when we were in Miami for three weeks — and then got to see him teach,” Warren said. “And thought, ‘That’s it. I’m marrying this one.’ You know when you find a good one, grab ’em and hang on.”
