Canadian prime minister Trudeau, wife announce separation
Online desk: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on social media Wednesday that he and his wife Sophie are separating after 18 years of marriage, reports CBS News.
“After many meaningful and difficult conversations, we have made the decision to separate,” Trudeau wrote on Instagram.
Sophie Grégoire Trudeau posted a similar message on her account. The couple has three children — 15-year-old Xavier, 14-year-old Ella-Grace and 9-year-old Hadrien. They asked the public to respect their privacy for the “well-being of our children.”
According to a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office, the Trudeaus have signed a legal separation agreement.
“They remain a close family,” the statement said. “Both parents will be a constant presence in their children’s lives and Canadians can expect to often see the family together. The family will be together on vacation, beginning next week.”
The couple, who married in 2005, often supported each other in the public sphere. In a Vogue magazine article, the couple recounted how they knew each other as children when Sophie was in the same primary class as the future politician’s brother, and then they met again at a Montreal charity event in 2003. A few months later, the two went out for dinner, and at the end, they told Vogue, he said, “I’m 31 years old, and I’ve been waiting for you for 31 years.”
Trudeau will be the first prime minister to go through a separation while in still office since his father and mother split in 1977. According to the National Post, then-Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s wife Margaret left her husband — who was 29 years her senior — and three sons to move to New York City. She filed for divorce six years later.
In his 2014 memoir ‘Common Ground,’ the younger Trudeau recalled that the ‘dark drama’ at home and his parents’ eventual divorce had been hard on him.
His own breakup comes as Trudeau’s ruling Liberals are struggling in the polls against the opposition Conservatives ahead of elections expected before the end of 2025.
Trudeau announced last week a major shakeup in his cabinet with the stated goal of strengthening his economic team ahead of that looming campaign.
This involved changing more than two-thirds of his political inner circle, with seven new recruits joining the cabinet and around 20 ministers reassigned to new roles.
Sophie Gregoire, 48, had been a constant presence at her 51-year-old husband’s side at political events over the past decade, as he took the party from third place to form a government in 2015, and through two more winning ballots in 2019 and 2021.
But she has appeared in public less in recent years, at times lamenting the struggles of marriage, saying last year in a social media post that they had ‘navigated through sunny days, heavy storms and everything in between.’
Trudeau himself has also hinted at difficulties, writing in his memoir: ‘Our marriage isn’t perfect, and we have had difficult ups and downs, yet Sophie remains my best friend, my partner, my love. We are honest with each other, even when it hurts.’
On their latest anniversary in May, Trudeau posted a photo online of the pair holding hands as they drove along a remote Canadian highway in a motor home, with the caption ‘Every mile of this journey together is an adventure. I love you Soph.’
