Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (51) and his wife Sophie Grégoire Trudeau (48) have announced their separation after 18 years of marriage. Both spouses announced this surprising news in identically worded statements on Instagram. Trudeau and his wife have known each other since childhood. In May 2005 they said yes.
“Sophie and I would like to share the fact that after many meaningful and difficult conversations, we have made the decision to separate,” Trudeau wrote on social media, adding, “Forever we will remain a close family of deep love and love Respect for each other and for everything we have built and will continue to build.” This is followed by a request to respect the family’s privacy.
The Canadian Prime Minister’s Office also confirmed the split. In a statement available to the “CBC” portal, it is said that the couple had “signed a legal separation agreement.” In the coming week, the family is to travel together on vacation. Trudeau and his wife have three children together: sons Xavier, 15, and Hadrien, 9, and a daughter named Ella-Grace, 14.
Sophie Trudeau is a former TV presenter. During her husband’s tenure, she was often seen at his side on public occasions and was personally involved in various charitable and social causes, including mental health and equality.
The couple had known each other since childhood. Sophie Trudeau was a classmate of Michel Trudeau (1975-1998), the Prime Minister’s brother who died in 1998. They became a couple in 2003, got engaged a year later and tied the knot in 2005.
Justin Trudeau is the second Canadian Prime Minister to separate during his tenure. His father Pierre Trudeau (1919-2000), who was Prime Minister of Canada from 1968 to 1979 and again from 1980 to 1984, separated in 1977 from his wife Margaret Trudeau (74), whom he had married in 1971.
Justin Trudeau has been surprisingly honest about the couple’s married life in the past. “Our marriage is not perfect, and we have difficult ups and downs,” he wrote in his 2014 autobiography Common Ground. His wife Sophie Trudeau said in an interview a year later: “No marriage is easy. I’m almost a little proud that we had problems because we want authenticity. We want truth.”
