Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to separate from his wife, Sophie Grégoire, after 18 years of marriage

In this summer of separations, after singers, actors and footballers, it is now the turn of world leaders. This Wednesday, Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau announced that he is separating from his wife, Sophie Grégoire-Trudeau, after 18 years of marriage, 20 years of relationship and three children together.

Both Trudeau and Grégoire have made the separation public through separate statements in English and French on their social media profiles. “Hello everyone. Sophie and I would like to share that after many meaningful and difficult conversations, we have made the decision to separate. As always, we remain a close-knit family with deep love and respect for each other and for everything we have built and will continue to build,” Trudeau said. “For the well-being of our children, we ask you to respect our and their privacy. Thank you.” One of the last times they were seen together at an official event was in early May in London, at the coronation of Charles III, when they entered and left Westminster Abbey holding hands.

51-year-old Trudeau, who this November will have been Canada’s leader for eight years, and Grégoire, 48, met during childhood. They attended the same school in Montreal’s Mont Royal neighborhood, where she was in the same class as his younger brother, Michel, who died in an avalanche while skiing in 1998. Their paths diverged as their schooling progressed; he first studied art and literature, then engineering and a master’s degree in geography and the environment, to finally follow in the footsteps of his father, Pierre Trudeau, former prime minister of his country, and enter fully into the world of politics. Meanwhile, Grégoire began studying commerce, also following in the footsteps of her father, a banker, to later make a change and work in communication.

In 2003, the two old acquaintances met again at a charity event and, a few months later, started dating. As she recounted in an interview with Women on the Fence, the love affair was instantaneous: “On our first date, our very first date, he looked into my eyes, and said, ‘I’ve been waiting for you 31 years. You’re going to be my wife. We’re going to have a family together.’”

It seems that Trudeau was right. They were engaged in October 2004 and married in Montreal in May 2005. He went on to excel in his political path, and she for years kept her job, first as a cultural and health reporter, both on television and radio, and later as one of the star faces of the entertainment television network CTV. In 2010, she left her job and focused on philanthropy, advocating especially for women and girls and also focusing on eating disorders; she suffered from bulimia as a teenager. The couple has three children, Xavier, 15, Ella-Grace, 14, and Hadrien, 9. Last Mother’s Day in May, Trudeau called his wife and daughter Sophie “two of the strongest, bravest, and greatest people” he knew.

Throughout Trudeau’s public career, Grégoire has maintained a discreet media profile and a strong focus on the social causes she champions. This unobtrusive image has been common among the wives of Canadian prime ministers, who are not given an official position nor a salary. The exception to that unspoken norm was Trudeau’s mother, Margaret Sinclair, who was married to Pierre Elliott Trudeau from 1971 to 1977 (the divorce came in 1984) and with whom she had three children, Justin, Alexandre and the late Michel.

Margaret met Pierre when she was just 18 years old, and he was already 47; she converted to Catholicism to marry him. The couple separated in the middle of a huge media scandal. Margaret suffered from bipolar disorder and the children were left in Pierre’s care, although they eventually reached an amicable custody agreement. As Justin Trudeau said before, his parents loved each other enormously, but their different ways of seeing life — with the prime minister very focused on politics and duty — and above all the great age difference between them (Margaret was 29 years younger than Pierre) ended up separating them. Margaret, who had affairs with Jack Nicholson and Mick Jagger and converted to Buddhism, remarried a real estate businessman and had two more children; Pierre also had another daughter.

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