Like his father Pierre in 1984 when he was at the helm of Canada he divorced his mother Margaret, so the premier Justin Trudeau he separates from his wife Sophie Gregoire after 18 years. “After many meaningful and difficult conversations, we have made the decision to separate,” announced the 51-year-old prime minister on Instagram, the social media chosen by many other celebrities to communicate the breakdown of a marriage.
Justin and Sophie, a former entertainment journalist, were childhood friends and began dating in 2003 after meeting at a charity ball. Two years later they got married and three children were born from the union: Xavier, 15, Ella Grace, 14 and Hadrien 9.
“They remain a family and will be a constant presence in their children’s lives,” reads a note from Trudeau’s office who, in the 2014 autobiography ‘Common Ground, had recounted “the dark drama” and the pain of the divorce of his parents. Sophie has always been close to her husband both at home and in the many missions abroad but in recent times she had appeared in public more and more rarely and last year she had confessed, once again on social media, that she and her husband « they had happy days, blizzards, and everything in between.”
Even the premier had told of the difficulties of his marriage: “We’ve had our ups and downs, but Sophie remains my best friend, my partner, my love,” he wrote in the memoir a few years ago. On their last anniversary, last May, the premier posted a photo of the two of them holding hands aboard a camper along an isolated Canadian highway with the caption: “Every kilometer of this journey together is an adventure, I love you Soph”. The separation comes at a bad political moment for Trudeau, who is declining in support and behind the Conservatives in the polls ahead of elections scheduled for October 2025. Last week the prime minister announced a cabinet reshuffle with the stated aim to strengthen its economic team before the vote.