Taylor Swift’s ex-best friend and the other Kushner have been in a relationship since 2012. Yes, you read that right: Karlie Kloss, supermodel and “Kode with Klossy” founder, has been dating Joshua Kushner (Jared‘s younger brother) on the somewhat-DL for over five years. And there’s barely any details on the Internet about them.
Karlie has only rarely spoken about her relationship in interviews. With a few exceptions: when she covered InStyle Magazine in June 2017, and was asked, “How do you manage a relationship with your travel and everything else?” Karlie’s short response: “You make it work. We’ve been together almost five years. Time flies. It’s crazy. He’s a super-solid dude.” Ah, true love: a super-solid dude.
But using Instagram, we can learn SO MUCH about this unlikely pair. Like their romantic vacation to Burma in December 2013. Or how they love Coachella. Or how they take lots of photos of each other, but rarely together.
So, dear Alma readers, we have decided to gather all the details on this weird relationship just for you.
2012
June 8, 2012: Karlie and Josh meet. We have no idea how they meet, where they meet, or who introduced them. But we have some ideas, and the best guess is Russian socialite Dasha Zhukova (keep reading).
four years ago today I met my best friend ⭐️🌙 I love you more everyday. pic.twitter.com/ccKC2cyLEM
— Karlie Kloss (@karliekloss) June 8, 2016
June 15, 2012: Karlie joins Instagram. Perhaps at the suggestion of Josh, an early investor in the company? Honestly: we’re convinced. And the timeline lines up perfectly: meets Josh, they start hanging out/ texting/ whatever, he tells her to sign up for Instagram.
August 24, 2012: We don’t know this is Karlie & Josh until Karlie posts about it in February 2015, but: Josh’s friend — and Instagram founder — Kevin Systrom posts a picture of the two of them captioned “I think my friend likes her.” Obviously too vague (and no tags), but early hints!
November 2012: Rumors of Karlie and Josh dating begin to surface after the annual Victoria’s secret fashion show. US Weekly reported, “After walking the runway in several super-skimpy getups, the flawless American-born supermodel, 20, hit an afterparty with a very lucky guy on her arm: NYC-based investor Joshua Kushner… the 27-year-old Instagram investor ‘seemed nervous and shy around everyone but handled it well. Karlie is stunning and the sweetest girl ever. She stuck close to him.'”
Also November 2012: DailyMail reports on the rumors for the first time after Karlie purchases her first home in the West Village. They write: “The move also means she will be closer to her rumoured boyfriend, 27-year-old, Joshua Kushner.”
2013
March 14, 2013: First public acknowledgement by Karlie of their relationship, in an interview with People Magazine. “Also making her feel all those things: love Josh Kushner, a.k.a. Ivanka Trump’s brother-in-law. And she appreciates that he’s ‘so not in fashion. It’s really refreshing to leave all the fashion shows and shoots and chaos totally behind.'”
April 20, 2013: Josh instagrams Karlie for the first time!
(A day later: Karlie posts the same image on her Instagram.)
ALSO April 20, 2013: The founder of Instagram, Kevin Systrom, Instagrams Karlie & Josh together. It’s the third photo Josh is tagged in on Instagram.
May 13, 2013: Karlie and Josh attend the Robin Hood Foundation Gala in New York. The first public outing together!
June 2013: Karlie and Josh head upstate(ish) to Storm King Art Center. Josh posts this photo of Karlie’s back, which will be a recurring theme:
(she posts the same photo on her Instagram)
June 2013: Karlie & Josh head to Iceland. No pictures of each other, but they both post from Iceland. Very subtle.
June 2013: Also the first appearance of Josh on Karlie’s Instagram. Blink and you’ll miss him: no caption, faraway, no tag. But that’s him! Because guess who Instagrammed the SAME photo? Yep: Josh.
July 2013: More images of Karlie’s back pop up on Josh’s Instagram.
(Karlie posts a similar photo on her Instagram.)
August 12, 2013: DailyMail proclaims, “He’s as tall as her! 6ft1 model Karlie Kloss finds a man who matches up to her at last in boyfriend Josh Kushner!”
November 7, 2013: Karlie comments on Josh’s Instagram of a James Blake concert at Terminal 5 with a thumbs up. Modern romance!
A week later, November 14, 2013: Karlie cryptically Instagrams about flowers from “the person you love.” No mention of Josh.
December 2013: Karlie’s back, again, on Josh’s Instagram! And Karlie posted the same photo, and *gasp* gives him photo credit, writing “courtesy of snowman @joshuakushner.” The first tag! Acknowledgement! We’ve made it!
December 2013: And the side of Karlie’s face. Still no front image. But the proportion of images with Karlie to images without Karlie is increasing. This also means Josh & Karlie went to Bagan, Myanmar, and Burma together. Perhaps their first couples’ vacation?
2014
January 4, 2014: the first appearance of Josh’s face on Karlie’s Instagram. They’re all in.
January 14, 2014: 10 days later, she tags him in a post of the same location where she calls Burma the “adventure of a lifetime.”
February 2, 2014: Another photo of Karlie’s back on Josh’s Instagram. Shocker! At least he’s consistent…
February 5, 2014: Karlie gives an interview with metro.us, where this exchange occurs. This is one of very few interviews where she talks about Josh.
Have you ever stood someone up or been stood up?
Um, let me think. No, I don’t think so. I’m 21 years old, so I haven’t been on too many dates, and I have a boyfriend. That would be terrible to be stood up.
Do you believe in love at first sight?
Yeah, I do. I was definitely not planning on falling in love [with boyfriend Josh Kushner]. But I think that’s the thing about it, you can’t anticipate or plan it.
You’re photographed in lingerie a great deal — a look that men’s magazines like to perpetuate as real-life. Is this the case?
No, I’m into sweatpants and my boyfriend’s T-shirt. I like to be totally boring and watch football. There’s no fancy lingerie. But on a special occasion like Valentine’s Day, it’s always fun to get dressed up, and that’s why there’s some good stuff at Victoria’s Secret.
February 22, 2014: Karlie and Josh spotted on the streets of NYC for the first time. This is where most of their photos are from.
March 2014: Karlie posts an Instagram of her with Josh’s company, Oscar Health.
May 24, 2014: Karlie and Josh spotted in New York City. JustJared calls them a “Denim Duo!”
July 4, 2014: Karlie’s sister Kristine comments on Josh’s Instagram, “Hope you guys have a great trip! Can’t wait to see you next week! xx” … which means they’ve definitely met each other’s families by this point. (Karlie re-grams the Insta, no surprise there).
July 6, 2014: Josh posts this:
Karlie posts this:
August 6, 2014: They start to ramp up their public presence. In a teasing Instagram, Karlie writes “@joshuakushner is brave/gross.”
August 25, 2014: Karlie and Josh attend the U.S. Open together. DailyMail reported, “Clearly smitten with one another, the loved-up pair were spotted snuggling and smiling in the stands.”
October 2014: That Burma trip was really big for them.
#Regram from @joshuakushner 📷 – @karliekloss
November 2014: Guess what! More vague faraway shots of Karlie!
But we’ve made it…
November 2014: Karlie posts the first shot of the two of them shared on their social medias. Well, Josh is still kinda blurry… but she does caption it with a heart. A HEART, people. I don’t know why all these sites say she’s secretive about her relationship. That’s as clear as day!
December 2014: They’re spotted in Santiago, Chile together.
2015
January 2015: Karlie is alllll in on the heart emoji, and posting pictures of Josh.
February 14, 2015: For Valentine’s Day, Karlie posts a throwback of Kevin Systrom’s Instagram from August 2012. THUS PROVING: Instagram is the true documentation of the Karlie + Josh relationship.
March 2015: Josh posts “congratulations sam and linda” and then deletes it. Thankfully, there are Karlie Kloss fan accounts who save all the pictures. This means: Josh took Karlie to a friend’s wedding. Very serious.
April 2015: At Coachella (which they seem to have gone to most years), Karlie posts a picture of her kissing Josh on the cheek. Again with the red heart emoji. Intimate! We’ve still only seen photos of Karlie’s back on Josh’s Instagram.
May 2015: Finally, FINALLY! Josh Kushner posts a CLOSE-UP PHOTO of his girlfriend of three years. Looking pensive in front of a lighthouse.
(Karlie, obviously, re-grams the photo on her own account.)
June 7, 2015: Karlie and Josh go grocery shopping. They look kind of annoyed at the paparazzi. TBH, they look very annoyed.
June 12, 2015: In a long message, Karlie writes, “Happy birthday to my best friend and love of my life,” using photos from the U.S. Open in August 2014, further evidence that these two rarely take pictures together. She also calls him Joshua, which makes us think we shouldn’t be writing Josh. SOS.
August 2015: The first time Josh acknowledges Karlie’s birthday. Looks VERY familiar, no?! It’s the July 2014 post that she shared! This is a deep dive, people.
September 2015: Confident in their relationship, it seems like we’ve moved on from shots of Karlie’s back. This time: her front.
(No caption, still, obviously.)
2016
An important note: Not a single photo of Karlie appears on Josh’s Instagram in 2016. Perhaps because his brother’s father-in-law is now running for president, and elected president, and Josh is choosing to keep a very, very low profile.
January 12, 2016: Karlie, again, posts in support of Oscar Health.
(No Valentine’s Day post this year…)
March 26, 2016: Karlie & Josh attend a Knicks game at Madison Square Garden.
April 17, 2016: They attend Coachella (watch the video til the end, it flips around).
April 26, 2016: In one of their biggest public outings, Karlie takes Josh to the Time 100 Gala. This is right before Trump clinches the Republican nomination, so all commentary of Karlie bringing Josh focuses on his relationship to the Trump family.
Lindsey Vonn posts a video of them, calling Josh “the cute boyfriend.”
May 2, 2016: In another big public outing, Karlie & Josh attend the Met Ball.
June 8, 2016: Karlie posts on Twitter & Instagram, “four years ago today I met my best friend ⭐🌙 I love you more everyday.”
four years ago today I met my best friend ⭐️🌙 I love you more everyday. pic.twitter.com/ccKC2cyLEM
— Karlie Kloss (@karliekloss) June 8, 2016
June 11, 2016: Spotted arguing in NYC, fueling break-up rumors.
July 2016: Joshua attended that infamous Taylor Swift 4th of July party. (He looks very intense in the background. Karlie is bottom right.)
August 2016: Esquire profiles Jared Kushner, and writes about Josh: “Josh Kushner declined to comment on the record for this article; through a spokesman, he said that he loved his brother and did not want to say anything that might embarrass him. Nevertheless, the spokesman also said that Josh is a lifelong Democrat and will not be voting for Donald Trump in November.”
Also August 2016: Karlie wishes happy birthday to Mike Hess, heir to the multi-million dollar Hess oil family fortune, in a mirror selfie taken by none other than Josh. Could Mike Hess perhaps be the one who introduced the two of them?!! He is friends with Taylor Swift (who we know is friends with Karlie… or was friends…) and attended Harvard Business School (class of 2013). Josh — HBS class of 2011 — wouldn’t have overlapped, but it’s hard to imagine they didn’t run in similar circles.
September 11, 2016: Karlie is pictured at the U.S. Open with Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump, and a host of other people: David Geffen, Roman Abramovich’s wife Dasha Zhukova, Mike Hess (subject of above birthday post), John Hess, Leon Black, Princess Beatrice (!!), and Wendi Murdoch. (Where’s Josh?)
Enter the two other possibilities of who introduced Karlie and Joshua way back when: Wendi Deng and Dasha Zhukova. With one article speculating: “Although Karlie has never revealed how she met her notoriously publicity-shy boyfriend, the impeccably connected Deng may have played a part. She and Karlie have been friends since at least 2012 when the model appeared at a charity event hosted with Zhukova.” Josh and Dasha are definitely friends. And so are Karlie and Dasha.
Ivanka Trump watches tennis with Karlie Kloss, a princess and a (Democrat) billionaire https://t.co/mOUz0WLw7W pic.twitter.com/CVQ1FTz84d
— Daily Mail Celebrity (@DailyMailCeleb) September 12, 2016
This, of course, fuels many thinkpieces about Karlie’s liberal creds. But….
November 8, 2016: Karlie votes for Hillary Clinton.
#ImWithHer – @karliekloss
2017
January 22, 2017: Josh attends the inauguration, without Karlie.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BPlQuThjYwz/?taken-by=joshuakushner
January 23, 2017: The next day, Josh is spotted at the Women’s March. (Karlie isn’t.)
Among the men at the #WomensMarch: Joshua Kushner, brother of White House senior adviser Jared. (Photo by @jsidman.) https://t.co/1zeAx318qt pic.twitter.com/FtALNYlvvF
— Benjamin Freed (@brfreed) January 21, 2017
February 19, 2017: Perhaps because of the increased scrutiny, we’re back to vague photos of Karlie.
March 13, 2017: This Italian hotel posts a picture of Joshua & Karlie. Weird!
Did Josh Kushner say that?! We are very confused.
April 10, 2017: Profile of Josh in Forbes runs. Includes two mentions of Karlie. The more notable mention: “When he does leave the city, it’s upstate to a stone cabin with a big fireplace and plenty of privacy. Sometimes Karlie Kloss joins him; other times it’s just him.”
May 2017: Another Josh post, another faraway shot of Karlie.
June 12, 2017: And again, a faraway post of Karlie.
ALSO June 12, 2017: Karlie posts a birthday Instagram for Josh, mentioning their “past 5 years of adventures,” and calling him her best friend and partner in crime. And that’s his last appearance on her Instagram as of this writing.
It’s chemistry.
– @atticuspoetry ❤🤓🎂🍪❤ Happy birthday to my best friend and partner in crime. The past 5 years of our adventures together have been some of the best memories of my life. I love you @joshuakushner – @karliekloss
Very intimate. Also more emojis than just a heart.
August 2017: Break-up rumors after he doesn’t attend her 25th birthday party! Engagement rumors! The internet is confused!
August 21, 2017: Page Six reports that “Karlie Kloss and Josh Kushner vacationing upstate amidst break-up rumors.” No Instagrams posted, besides Karlie posting two pictures of her getting ready for the eclipse.
October 22, 2017: Almost a year after the election, we’re back to close-ups of Karlie on Josh’s Instagram. Still caption-less, obviously. He has to keep up his #aesthetic.
October 27, 2017: They attend the “All Hallows Eve” benefit at the Met together. Josh wears eyeliner; Karlie wears cat ears. Vanity Fair reports, “Her boyfriend, Joshua Kushner, gushed over Kloss’s ability to pull off just about anything saying, ‘it’s Karlie.'” And guess who Karlie was co-chairs with? Yep: Wendi Murdoch, and our favorite matchmaking Russian, Dasha Zhukova.
December 4, 2017: Spotted on the streets of London, looking very cozy. Daily Mail says they look “loved up.”
December 28, 2017: Karlie and Joshua jet off to Peru with other friends, including Mike Hess.
December 29, 2017: Another Peru selfie! Also not on Karlie’s Instagram, but writer Derek Blasberg’s. Also: SPOT DASHA. This is a very public vacation (Karlie is tagged in all these photos, allowing her fan accounts to pick up on them), and Josh is… smiling in all these photos. Weird!
2018
January 2, 2018: They’re still in Peru. And Karlie took another selfie, yet it’s not on her Instagram, but a friend’s.
February 9, 2018: Josh posts a throwback image of Karlie (no caption, but it’s the same jacket Karlie was wearing in London in early December).
February 18, 2018: They attend the NBA All-Star game together.
February 20, 2018: Josh posts a picture of Karlie at the Eames House. No caption, duh.
February 25, 2018: Karlie and Josh hanging out with their squad.
March 12 2018: Reports came out that Josh Kushner donated $50,000 to the March for Our Lives.
March 24, 2018: Karlie and Josh attend March for Our Lives in Washington, D.C. Josh and Karlie post the same photograph on Insta (different filters), of Karlie standing in front of a bunch of signs.
Josh also posted a photo of the two of them on his Insta story, and a picture of them with some of the student activists.
April 20 — April 25, 2018 (approx): Josh and Karlie travel to Israel and Jordan. Josh posts this photo of Karlie:
Karlie posted an image of her and Josh in the desert with the caption “My ride or die ❤” (classic red heart situation).
In Jordan, they hang out with their #squad (including Misha Nonoo, who apparently set up Meghan Markle & Prince Harry, Ellie Goulding, Crown Prince Hussein of Jordan, and Princess Beatrice). Karlie posted a group shot (didn’t tag anyone, classic celebrity move) and captioned it “an adventure to remember🐪❤.”
Around this time, engagement rumors start to heat up again. Do we think they got engaged in Israel?! Possibly…
May 7, 2018: Catholic Met Gala time! Karlie goes, duh. She’s dressed by Brandon Maxwell. Josh, obviously, accompanies her (but not on the red carpet. There, Karlie’s joined by Maxwell and Tiffany Haddish.)
On neither Karlie nor Josh’s Instagram is there evidence they were at the Met Gala together. However, that’s why fan accounts exist! In one great photo, you can see Josh and Karlie chatting with Gigi Hadid while Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian walk by. In another, Karlie holds Josh’s arm as they walk next to Jourdan Dunn. And here’s a (surprisingly) loving photo of them.
May 27, 2018: Karlie and Josh post the same shot of Karlie — Josh’s is a video, uncaptioned, Karlie’s is a still image, no mention of Josh.
Early June sometime: Josh asks Karlie to marry him in upstate New York! Karlie converts to Judaism! BIG MOVES!
June 11 through 14, 2018: Karlie and Josh head to Japan for Josh’s birthday. Josh posts two instas of Karlie; Karlie instas herself twice (in what looks like Tokyo and in Kyoto).
While in Japan, Karlie also instas for Josh’s birthday, a throwback to watching the eclipse. (If you remember, Karlie had posted solo shots during the eclipse watching in August 2017, no sign of Josh. Now we know he was there!)
Love you more than I can ever express @joshuakushner ❤ – @karliekloss
July 4, 2018: Josh instagrams Karlie on a pool float, calling her Wendy Peffercorn (the lifeguard from the 1993 film The Sandlot). No engagement ring spotted….
Late July: Karlie and Josh vacation in Italy on David Geffen’s yacht with their group of friends. (Including Misha Nonoo and her boyfriend Mikey Hess, who you may remember from above.)
(BTW, that is Paul McCartney in the back! What is this friend group??)
July 24, 2018: They announce their engagement, through Instagram (OBVI).
August 2, 2018: Karlie posts the most PDA photo she’s ever shared:
Thank you @jr for this amazing pic.” – @karliekloss
September 7, 2018: They attend the U.S. Open! Classic Karlie and Josh move.
September 12, 2018: Vogue publishes a profile of Karlie. We fact-checked it, and we learned, “The proposal was romantic and sweet. We spent the weekend in upstate New York, just the two of us.” And Karlie also said: “Josh and I share a lot of the same liberal values that guide our lives and the things we stand for.” Distancing from Jared and Ivanka, perhaps?
October 11, 2018: Vogue, again: this time a “73 questions” video. It’s painfully awkward, but there are some bits about Josh (like the proposal, we already knew):
October 18, 2018: Josh and Karlie GET MARRIED. Karlie announces their wedding, which took place in upstate New York, in an instagram post captioned “10.18.2018 ❤️” (Josh has yet to post anything). People reports about 80 people attended the ceremony, and that it was a Jewish wedding.
They’re apparently going to have a bigger celebration in the spring.
June 2019: Update: they did! In Wyoming!
July 2019: Karlie opens up about her love for Shabbat!
And so we’ve made it to present day. If you’ve made it all the way through this admittedly very thorough timeline, we salute you.
And now, to leave you with a few questions to think about as you go about your day: When did Karlie decide to convert to Judaism? How did Josh propose? Why wasn’t Taylor Swift at their wedding? Will Josh ever caption his photos?
Only time will tell.
Updated July 2, 2019.
