Tulsi Gabbard's Husband Abraham Williams Proposed on a Surfboard

From Oprah Magazine

• Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is one of over two dozen Democratic candidates vying for the Oval Office in 2020. Since 2015, she's been married to Abraham Williams.

• Gabbard is gearing up to participate in night one of the July 2019 Democratic primary debates.

Tulsi Gabbard has been the U.S. Representative for Hawaii's 2nd congressional district since 2013, and she's the first Samoan American and Hindu member of the United States Congress. Now, the legislator is throwing her hat in the ring for the 2020 presidential race. And her husband, Abraham Williams, has been there to support her every step of the way. Though he keeps a low profile in comparison to his wife, there's enough info available to make you want to follow him on Instagram.

Abraham Williams is a cinematographer.

According to his professional website, Williams is a Hawaii- and Washington, D.C.-based cinematographer and steadicam operator. In fact, Williams and Gabbard connected when in 2012, Williams volunteered to help shoot Gabbard’s campaign ads during her first run for U.S. Congress.

"About a year and a half later, he asked me out for the first time at a birthday party that a mutual friend of ours threw me. It was the first time that we had a chance to kick back, relax, and really talk on a personal level," she told The New York Times.

He still shoots the ads for his wife's political campaigns. And according to IMDB, he's worked on several short films, including Last Taxi Dance, Knight Watch, and the full-length film The Candle & the Curse.

"I love capturing images of people, their emotions, character, and telling their story. I am fascinated by light, and how it can affect the way an audience feels about the person they're watching on the screen," Williams wrote on his site. "Whether it's warm or cold, harsh or soft, light enables us to effectively portray a person's feelings, their message and their story through a lens to the viewer."

Williams really, really, really loves surfing—and so does Gabbard.

One peek at his Instagram page can affirm that yes, he has a deep passion for water sports.

While they kept their relationship under wraps for quite some time, the public learned more about Williams thanks to their New York Times wedding coverage. "Our friendship and relationship developed over our mutual love for the ocean and surfing," Gabbard said in the profile.

In fact, the entire proposal was even ocean- and surfing-themed. The two had paddled out to Hawaii's South Shore at sunset on the day of the event. Gabbard told the Times, "By the time we got there and were paddling out, the sun was just about to dip under the horizon. He paddled quickly out to the lineup, way ahead of me, and waited as I slowly made my way out. Then he paddled over, pulled out a double-tethered contraption attached to a gold duct-tape-covered flotation device, with a beautiful ring attached, and said, ‘I have a question for you: Will you marry me?’"

Williams's mother works with Gabbard.

Proving that it's a small world, Williams’s mother, Anya Anthony, also happens to be the manager of Gabbard’s district office in Honolulu. She began that job a year before Williams and Gabbard went on their first date. She's an essential part of "Team Tulsi," and according to a Facebook post shared by Gabbard, she's the person who "keeps all the trains running on time."

In 2015, she praised Anthony, writing, “She’s a hard worker who has a heart for service, so I’m grateful she decided to stay on the team, even though the rules say I can never give her a raise or a promotion. Plus, you can imagine how bad it would have been to start my marriage off by firing my new mother-in-law!”

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