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Jun 15, 2023

Justin and Sophie split: How their marriage started and ended

Both Justin and Sophie have spoken publicly about the hardships in married life Justin Trudeau met Sophie Grégoire in 2003 toward the end of what he would later describe as an “overly social” time in

Both Justin and Sophie have spoken publicly about the hardships in married life

Justin Trudeau met Sophie Grégoire in 2003 toward the end of what he would later describe as an “overly social” time in his life, when they were paired to co-host a charity event.

She was a new television host in Montreal who had worked in advertising and as a personal shopper at Holt Renfrew. They had crossed paths years before. She was the only child of a wealthy Montreal stockbroker, and a childhood friend of Justin’s late younger brother Michel.

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They hit it off, and although he did not respond to an email she sent him afterwards, they bumped into each other on the street a few days later, as Justin later told CPAC’s Catherine Clark in 2009. “I knew that the day I went out for coffee with her was the last day I would ever have as a single man.”

They had both gone to McGill University, she in commerce before switching to communications at the Université de Montréal, he a few years earlier in literature. By May of 2004 they were seriously dating and he was publicly introducing her as his girlfriend. By October 2004 they were engaged.

From the beginning, even though he was not yet even in politics, it was a marriage uniquely resonant with the office of the Prime Minister of Canada. He proposed on Oct. 18, which would have been his father Pierre Trudeau’s 85th birthday. She had never met him, but they went to his grave that day. She later told Maclean’s magazine: “An image of Papa Pierre came into my head, and I said to him, ‘One day I will carry your name. Rest assured that I will carry it with pride, dignity and respect.”

Wedding invitations started going out in the spring of 2005, asking 170 guests to keep the details private. They were married in May 2005 at Sainte-Madeleine d’Outremont Church, with a reception at the St. James Hotel in Old Montreal, and a honeymoon in Mauritius. He was 33, she was 29.

Sophie once told an interviewer she wanted two children and Justin wanted three.

Their first, Xavier, was born in 2007. The next year, Justin was first elected member of Parliament for Papineau in Montreal. Ella-Grace was born in 2009, and Hadrien in 2014.

She was on track to be one half of a high-profile political marriage, with all the stresses that go with it, and she spoke publicly of her trepidation, but also her support for Justin’s work.

They gave every indication of a strong partnership. Before he beat up Patrick Brazeau in a 2012 promotional boxing match, a key moment in the rise of his political fortunes, Justin was caught on camera reassuring Sophie: “I was put on this planet to do this. I fight and win. That’s what I’m good at.” Electoral success would follow.

They lived initially in Montreal’s Côte-des-Neiges, later in Ottawa’s Rockcliffe Park. That latter home was where one of the most threatening episodes in the life of the Trudeaus took place, in the summer of 2014, when Justin was in Winnipeg and Sophie home with the three children, including the infant Hadrien. Someone broke into the house, and while no one was hurt or even immediately aware, a threatening note was left behind, prompting a change in the family’s approach to personal security.

“We’re extremely shocked and destabilized,” Justin told The Montreal Gazette that same day. “It’s a reminder of the need to be vigilant. We have an incredible country here where I wander around with no need for security and that’s wonderful, but we do have to be very, very careful about how we move forward.”

After winning the 2015 election the family chose to live in Rideau Cottage. They quickly became one of the most glamorous political couples in the world, fawned over by an international press that was quick to call them Canadian Kennedys. In 2015, they were even photographed for Vogue, prompting jibes that Justin was coming across more like Zoolander.

Canada does not have an official office of the First Lady, as the U.S. does, but the role of prime minister’s spouse has always involved a public life. Sophie took part in many official events, sometimes also finding the occasional controversy that has dogged her husband’s political life.

In 2012, for example, she was reportedly paid $1,400 for an appearance at a WE charity event, minus her speaking agency’s 20 per cent commission. This would come back to haunt the family as WE collapsed in 2020 amid a scandal that cost Justin his finance minister, Bill Morneau.

Sophie has had to endure some of the partisan griping that goes with the prime minister’s job. In 2016, for example, she was criticized by opposition parties, both Conservative and NDP, for telling a newspaper interviewer she was overwhelmed by the volume of requests to speak at public events, and that the one aide she has was not enough for her to keep up and also take care of the children.

She has even been the victim of internal Liberal bungling, such as during the calamitous trip to India in 2018, when the international consensus was that they overdid it with the dressing up. But it was a Liberal MP who put her in the most awkward position on that trip, by inviting a failed assassin to a dinner event. Sophie ended up being photographed alongside Jaspal Atwal, who was convicted in the 1980s of attempting to kill an Indian cabinet minister travelling in Canada, and charged but acquitted of attacking Ujjal Dosanjh, then an opponent of Sikh separatists and later a federal cabinet minister and premier of British Columbia. It was not even clear how he was legally in India, but he definitely should not have been at a diplomatic dinner. The episode prompted consternation about the Liberal government’s security and tolerance for extremists.

Much of Sophie’s advocacy has been on women’s rights, including as spokesperson for Plan Canada’s “Because I am a Girl” initiative, and various charities for nature, eating disorders and mental health. She is also keenly involved in yoga, and has been certified as a yoga instructor and volunteered teaching it to children. Her interest in Eastern spirituality and self-improvement was occasionally shared by her husband, but less openly, as when photographs taken during his appearance on a podcast in 2017 showed marks on his arms caused by “fire cupping,” a faddish therapy derived from traditional Chinese medicine in which alcohol is set alight on a cotton swab to remove oxygen from a cup before applying it to the skin, creating a low-pressure seal that leaves telltale bruising.

“We can confirm that he indeed uses that treatment,” was all his press secretary would say, but Sophie’s influence seemed obvious.

Both Justin and Sophie have spoken publicly about the hardships in married life and their commitment to each other despite those challenges.

“I’m almost kind of proud of the fact that we’ve had hardship, yes, because we want authenticity,” Sophie once told Global News. “We want truth. We want to grow closer as individuals through our lifetime and we’re both dreamers and we want to be together for as long as we can.”

Every mile of this journey together is an adventure. I love you, Soph. Happy anniversary!

Earlier this year, in May, Justin posted an anniversary photo of them, captioned: “Every mile of this journey together is an adventure. I love you, Soph. Happy anniversary!”

The separation was announced Wednesday with identical statements that asked for privacy for their children.

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