Inside Justin Trudeau and Sophie Grégoire’s 20-year romance as PM says he is going
Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, has announced that he is stepping down, ending his nine-year tenure and casting his personal life back in the spotlight.
As the son of the late Pierre Trudeau, a former Canadian prime minister, the 53-year-old’s family life has always been somewhat in the public eye. So when he began his own career in politics he didn’t shy away from attending official events with his wife, entertainment TV reporter Sophie Grégoire, and family.
Delivering his resignation speech outside his home in Ottawa, he paid special mention to his family.
He said: “Over the holidays, I’ve also had a chance to reflect and have had long talks with my family about our future. Throughout the course of my career, any success I have personally achieved has been because of their support and with their encouragement.”
However, in August 2023, he announced that after 18 years of marriage he and Grégoire were separating.
Although shocking news at the time, the couple had been seen together less frequently, and had spoken about the challenges of long-term relationships. In a wedding anniversary post on Instagram in May 2022, Grégoire noted that they “have navigated through sunny days, heavy storms, and everything in between”.
The couple then made headlines for their amicable and “modern divorce” focused on co-parenting. They have even continued to holiday together as a family.
According to reports, the children mainly live with Trudeau in Rideau Cottage, a Canadian crown property in Ottawa, and Grégoire lives nearby.
The couple’s love story began way back in their school days – Sophie Grégoire was a classmate of Justin’s younger brother, Michel. Their paths crossed again as adults, and the pair began dating in 2003.
From their first date in a karaoke bar to a post-separation relationship, here’s everything you need to know about Canada’s ex-first couple.
From a childhood first kiss to a karaoke bar first date
The couple first started dating in 2003 after being childhood friends
The Montreal-born daughter of a stockbroker and a nurse, Sophie Grégoire first met her husband-to-be back in the pair’s schooldays, when she was in his brother Michel’s class at school. Grégoire recalls spending hours at the Trudeau family home.
She even remembers having her first kiss with Justin when they were both children. “They had a really cool pool with a trapeze and ropes and we could play Tarzan for hours,” she said to Maclean’s. “We would hide in the closet to have our first kiss.”
After moving apart, their paths crossed again when they met in 2003 as co-hosts of a charity gala in Montreal. Grégoire told Vogue that what first struck her about Justin Trudeau, who at the time was a panelist on CBC Radio’s Canada Reads series, was that “he had a really deep gaze”.
Grégoire was working as an entertainment TV reporter and the two hit it off, chatting and flirting into the evening. But when she sent him an email afterwards, Trudeau didn’t reply.
“I knew if I responded even slightly,” he told Vogue in 2016, “we’d wind up going for coffee, and that would be the last date I’d ever have in my life.”
When she didn’t receive a response, Grégoire dismissed the idea of dating Trudeau. But, a few weeks later, they ran into each other by chance and Trudeau apologised for his email rudeness. Grégoire told Maclean’s that she played hard to get, refusing to give him her number and telling him to email her instead.
Trudeau emailed her that night, asking her on a date. After initially rejecting him, Grégoire finally agreed and the pair went on their first date to an Afghan restaurant, then to a karaoke bar, where they sang Elton John and the Beatles.
The couple in happier times
“I’m a dreamer and a romantic,” she told Vogue, “and, at the end of dinner, he said, ‘I’m 31 years old, and I’ve been waiting for you for 31 years.’ And we both cried like babies.”
While the couple were walking down the street after the date, Trudeau accidentally walked headfirst into a pole. “I thought, Oh my God. You nerd!” Grégoire said. “And he kept explaining for 30 minutes, ‘Sophie, Sophie, I never do this.’”
‘I felt like I was a princess’ – an intimate, fairytale wedding
On their wedding day
Getty Images
The following year, after getting spa treatments at a luxury hotel in Quebec, Trudeau proposed. “I got down on one knee in front of the fireplace in this beautiful ornate room and asked her to marry me,” he told Maclean’s.
“He really went out of his way,” Grégoire said of the proposal. “There were candles and rose petals everywhere. I felt like I was a princess.”
They married the following year, in a traditional Catholic ceremony at Sainte-Madeleine d’Outremont Church in Montreal. As Grégoire entered the church, she told the crowd outside, “I’m the luckiest woman in the world,” according to CNBC news.
‘I’m the luckiest woman in the world’
Toronto Star via Getty Images
The ceremony was intimate, with the guest list limited to family and friends. “We knew we didn’t want to go the route of inviting dignitaries and prime ministers or anything like that,” Trudeau told MacLean’s. “For me, the guest list was either going to be under 200 or over 1,000 — and there was no way it was going to be 1,000.”
As her husband became involved in politics, Grégoires career also began to change. She became a yoga instructor and a public speaker, developing expertise in health and nutrition, as well as body-image issues – a topic close to her heart following her own long struggle with bulimia.
The Trudeau family
“Time, maturity, therapy, self-knowledge, yoga, meditation, and babies – all this eventually brought me to a healing space,” Grégoire told Vogue.
For his part, Trudeau has praised his wife for helping him to be a better father, leader and feminist. He told Vox in 2016 that he educates his children about gender equality by “showing that I’m attentive and respectful and very much in a partnership with Sophie as much as we are in a marriage.”
From Emma Watson to the Duchess of Sussex – their A-list circle
The Trudeaus with the Prince and Princess of Wales
Getty Images
As well as rubbing shoulders with politicians, foreign dignitaries and royalty, the Trudeaus have their fair share of A-lister friends and admirers.
During a visit to Canada in 2016 to promote her HeForShe campaign, Emma Watson described her happiness at riding a Vespa around the Canadian capital with Grégoire. “Definitely a highlight of my year was meeting this person,” the 33-year-old actress captioned a since-deleted photo of the pair on Instagram. “Who picks you up on a Vespa before your meeting to personally show you why she loves her city and her country? It was one of the most free and inspiring mornings I have had all year – not what I expected from someone who is as busy as she must be.”
Emma Watson and Sophie Grégoire
Grégoire responded, writing: “Emma, beautiful friend, you know how much I admire your path, dedication and hard work toward gender equality. You are a kind-hearted and generous soul! Until our next ride!”
Grégoire is also a close pal of the Duchess of Sussex’s, appearing on her podcast Archetypes in November 2022. The pair met when Meghan was filming Suits in Toronto. In the interview, Meghan praised Grégoire for being a calming presence while she was facing a whirlwind of media scrutiny.
Grégoire with the then Meghan Markle
It is common knowledge that Trudeau went to school with Friends star Matthew Perry. In an interview with Jimmy Kimmel in 2017, Perry described an encounter he’s “not proud of” with Canada’s prime minister, saying that he beat up a young Trudeau when they were both children.
“I’m not bragging about this, this is terrible,” Perry told late-night host Jimmy Kimmel on Wednesday. “I was a stupid kid.”
Trudeau’s father was the prime minister of Canada at the time. “But I don’t think that’s the reason we beat him up,” Perry noted. “I think he was the only kid in school that we could beat up.”
‘I’m not middle-class’ – Trudeau’s net worth and the family’s 22-bedroom Georgian mansion
High rollers: The Trudeaus have vast personal wealth
Getty
Trudeau has spoken candidly about his personal wealth in the past, famously saying: “I’m not middle-class. I don’t pretend I am.” This is certainly true. He has disclosed that he inherited about $1.2 million from his father and as Canada’s prime minister, Trudeau’s personal salary is $357,800 a year.
He may also inherit money from his mother, Margaret Trudeau, who according to Celebrity Net Worth, is worth $10 million. He has described his family’s wealth, which dates back to the early 20th century, as a “lottery I won at birth”.
Trudeau lives with his family in Rideau Cottage, a 22-bedroom Georgian revival mansion maintained with public funds. Trudeau lived there as a child when his father Pierre was prime minister. “That’s one of the reasons that that house has gone into the ground since the time I lived there – is that no prime minister wants to spend a penny of taxpayer dollars on up-keeping that house,” Trudeau has said.
The Trudeau estate also inherited a family home in Montreal as well as a summer home in the Laurentian mountains.
‘Our marriage isn’t perfect’ – marital struggles and separation
The Trudeau family pose at the Taj Mahal
Getty
Despite a fairytale beginning, a few cracks began to appear in the pair’s relationship in recent years.
When Trudeau was first elected, Grégoire had a public profile, meeting international leaders and royalty and going to charity events, and joined her husband on overseas trips. However, the couple have been seen together less frequently in recent years.
In a wedding anniversary post on Instagram in May 2022, Grégoire wrote about the challenges of long-term relationships. “You all know I keep things honest: long-term relationships are challenging in so many ways,” she wrote. “They demand constant work, flexibility, compromise, sacrifice, devotion, patience, effort, and so much more.”
Trudeau has also spoken about the challenges in their marriage, writing in his 2014 autobiography: “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 August 2, 2023, after 18 years of marriage and 20 years together, the pair shared the news of their separation.
