Canada’s prime minister and his wife Sophie Grégoire Trudeau have announced separation after 18 years of marriage.

Married in 2005, they frequently stood with one another in public. The couple described how they first met at a Montreal charity event in 2003 after first becoming acquainted as kids when Sophie was in the same primary class as the future politician’s brother. A couple of months later, they went out for dinner. When it was over, they told Vogue that he had remarked, “I’m 31 years old, and I’ve been waiting for you for 31 years.”

Advertisement

• Sophie and Justin met as children, she was a classmate and friend of his youngest brother, Michel.
• When they co-hosted a charitable event in Montreal, Justin Trudeau and Sophie Gregoire ran into one another once more. They began dating.
• On the day when former Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Trudeau’s father, would have been 85, the couple got engaged in October, 2004. At Montreal’s Sainte-Madeleine d’Outremont Church, Justin and Sophie Gregoire Trudeau celebrated their nuptials in 2005.
• A year after, their first son was born in 2007, Justin Trudeau was elected Member of Parliament for Papineau, Que in 2008. Then, in 2009, Sophie gave birth to daughter in Montreal and in 2014, their third child, a son was born in Ottawa.
• In 2015, Trudeau became Canada’s 23rd prime minister, leading the Liberal Party to a majority victory in the country’s federal election.
• Trudeau announced he will take a day off during the G7 Summit when he was in Japan for his 11th wedding anniversary. Together they hosted many heads of state including US President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama; the Duke of Cambridge, William, and the Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton; Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Trudeau had once defended his wife at a press conference when a protestor used a sexist term to describe her.
• Gregoire Trudeau also launched a podcast series on mental health and well-being in 2020.  She had appeared on the podcast Archetypes hosted by the Duchess of Sussex where the two talk about motherhood and their friendship.
• The couple had previously been open about their relationship’s challenges, but in recent years, they had been less frequently spotted together in public.
• In 2020, on their wedding anniversary, Justin called his wife “my rock, my partner, and my best friend.”

Before he was elected as prime minister, Trudeau made it apparent that the couple had struggled, noting in his 2014 autobiography Common Ground that “our marriage isn’t perfect, and we have had difficult ups and downs.”

On the occasion of their wedding anniversary last year, she posted a message on social media writing, “We have navigated through sunny days, heavy storms, and everything in between and it ain’t over.”

As recently as Monday, Trudeau was still wearing his wedding ring. The CBC added that Trudeau would probably discuss the split in public this week.

Reuters has quoted sources saying Gregoire Trudeau will relocate to separate housing in Ottawa but plans to spend a lot of time with the kids at Rideau Cottage, the prime minister’s official residence, to make sure they enjoy the most typical upbringing possible.

The couple would have shared custody of the kids, according to the source.

Given that he frequently emphasizes the value of family life, the development represents one of Trudeau’s largest personal difficulties since taking office in 2015.

The statement comes a week after Trudeau disclosed a significant cabinet shake-up in an effort to help his Liberal Party, which is trailing in the polls. His supporters claimed that he was committed to leading the Liberals in the upcoming election, which must take place by October 2025.