Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife Sophie are separating after 18 years of marriage. Here's a complete timeline of their relationship.
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- Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife Sophie Grégoire Trudeau are separating.
- The couple was married for 18 years. They have three children: Xavier, Ella-Grace, and Hadrien.
- Justin and Sophie, who met as kids, said in a statement that they will "remain a close family."
Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images
Sophie, 48, and Justin, 51, first crossed paths growing up in the Mount Royal suburb of Montreal. A few years younger than her future husband, Sophie was a childhood friend and classmate of his younger brother Michel Trudeau, she told the Canadian magazine Maclean. Michel later died in an avalanche in 1998 while skiing with friends at Kokanee Glacier Provincial Park in British Columbia, the Montreal Gazette reported.
Sophie told Maclean she recalled having her first kiss with Justin when they were kids in his childhood home. "We would hide in the closet to have our first kiss," she said.
Over time, the pair fell out of touch. Sophie went on to become an entertainment journalist. Meanwhile, Justin went into teaching and gradually began carving out a political career, following in the footsteps of his father Pierre Trudeau, who served as Canada's 15th prime minister. But in June 2003, Sophie and Justin ran each other as adults while cohosting a charity event in Montreal.
The pair told Vogue in 2016 that they spent the entire evening flirting and chatting, which prompted Sophie to reach out to Justin the next day via email, suggesting they spend time together. Justin didn't respond.
"I knew if I responded even slightly," he said, "we'd wind up going for coffee, and that would be the last date I'd ever have in my life."
Eventually, they ended up bumping into each other a few months later and Justin said he asked Sophie out to dinner. She told the magazine she was hesitant to say yes, but eventually agreed.
"I'm a dreamer and a romantic," Sophie said. "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."
Bernard Weil/Toronto Star via Getty Images
After two years of dating, Justin, then 33, and Sophie, then 30, got married at the Sainte-Madeleine D'Outremont Church in Montreal. According to Maclean's, the ceremony was attended by around 180 guests, including Justin's mother Margaret Trudeau.
She told the publication the happiness surrounding Sophie and Justin's wedding contrasted previous times the family had gathered at Montreal for more somber occasions, such as for the funeral of her ex-husband Pierre in September 2000.
"The past two times my family has come to Montreal for family occasions it's been extraordinarily sorrowful," she said. "This time it is joyful, so we're all savouring the fact that we're here to celebrate such happiness in our family."
The wedding was also somewhat of an intimate and semi-traditional event, and by choice. Justin told the publication they didn't invite dignitaries or political figures because if they did, the guest list could've ended up in the thousands. "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," he said.
Meanwhile, Sophie said they decided to forgo the tradition of having a wedding cake. "I find that people never eat it," she said. "You take this tacky picture cutting the cake. So I said, 'No! Let's do something different!'"
REUTERS/Shaun Best
In 2007, Justin won the nomination for the Liberal party candidacy in Montreal's Papineau district, according to CBC. The victory was an early sign of the former drama teacher's political ambitions.
In his victory speech, he drew parallels between himself and his father Pierre, who won a similar election in 1965. "You can understand how fiercely proud I am to be able to say that your prime minister was also my dad," Justin said.
During the nomination meeting, Justin was photographed with Sophie by his side. And while her husband was carving his career out, Sophie was pivoting her own. Prior to Justin's political career, Sophie was a Quebec correspondent for television network CTV's entertainment show "eTalk Daily" covering celebrities and their philanthropic work, according to a 2005 press release.
In her interview with Vogue in 2016, she said she took a step back from reporting. Instead, the magazine reported she focused on becoming a certified yoga instructor as well as a public speaker on topics such as health, women's issues, and eating disorders.
Tim Rooke - Pool/Getty Images
On what would've been the 88th birthday of Justin's father Pierre, Sophie gave birth to her and Justin's first son, Xavier Trudeau, who was born at 9-pounds, 2-ounces, according to the Toronto Star.
Sharing the happy news with, CTV "eTalk" program, Justin said: "Mom and baby are doing wonderfully."
REUTERS/Todd Korol
Ella-Grace Margaret Trudeau, named after her paternal grandmother and great-grandmother, was born on February 5 in Montreal, Canada, according to People.
REUTERS/Blair Gable
Justin told voters in his victory speech that he accepted his Liberal party leadership with "great humility," CTV reported at the time.
"My fellow Liberals, it is with great respect for those who have stood in this place before me and great resolve to do the hard work that is required in front of us that I accept with great humility the confidence you have placed in me," he said.
REUTERS/Blair Gable
After his landslide victory, in which he won more than 80% of the leadership party votes, Justin also said the work was only getting started, according to the Toronto Star.
"Let us be clear-eyed about what we have accomplished. We have worked hard and we have had a great campaign. We are united, hopeful and resolute in our purpose," he said. "But know this: we have won nothing more and nothing less than the opportunity to work even harder."
NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images
After announcing Sophie was pregnant for the third time in August 2013, the couple welcomed the birth of their second son Hadrien Trudeau in February 2014.
Justin shared the news with a sweet photograph of his newborn clutching onto his finger on Twitter, writing that Xavier and Ella-Grace "couldn't be prouder" of their newest family member.
Steve Russell/Toronto Star via Getty Images
"Our marriage isn't perfect, and we have had difficult ups and downs, yet Sophie remains my best friend, my partner, my love," Justin wrote in his memoir, according to Reuters. "We are honest with each other, even when it hurts."
REUTERS/Mark Blinch
The couple were also frequently joined by their three children on the campaign trail, which was Canada's longest ever at 78 days, The Globe and Mail reported at the time.
Tara Walton/Toronto Star via Getty Images
Speaking to Global News in 2015, Sophie said she and Justin had experienced "hardship" in their relationship.
"No marriage is easy," she said, adding that she was "almost kind of proud of the fact that we've had hardship."
"We want authenticity. We want truth," Sophie added. "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."
REUTERS/Chris Wattie
In their joint Vogue interview following Justin's victory, Sophie, who effectively became Canada's First Lady, said she still primarily saw herself as a mother and a wife.
"One of my duties is to really stay grounded," she said.
Justin added that he regarded him and Sophie as "partners," and more so than his "mother and father were ever able to be." Justin's parents finalized their divorce in 1984 after separating while Pierre was prime minister in 1977, according to People.
REUTERS/Chris Wattie
Sophie was among those watching as Justin, who was 43 at the time, became the second youngest prime minister in Canadian history.
According to The Guardian, after being sworn in, Justin mouthed "I love you" to his family.
REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
Just months into his tenure as prime minister, Justin became the first Canadian prime minister to official visit to Washington DC in 19 years, according to CBC. He made the journey to the US with Sophie.
The couple established a close friendship with the Obamas during the state visit. During an event hosted at the Institute of Peace, Michelle Obama called Sophie her "soul mate" and joked that they had "already gotten into trouble," according to a press release.
"We're going to be in a lot of trouble before this visit is over," she added.
Meanwhile, Justin and Barack Obama also appeared to develop a close bond. A few months after the visit during the North American Leaders' Summit in Ottawa, Canada, the pair posed for a selfie shared to the Obama White House Instagram captioned: "True bromance."
REUTERS/Chris Wattie
According to a royal press release, William and Kate were "incredibly grateful" to be invited to visit Canada by Justin in 2016. They'd previously visited Canada shortly after tying the knot in 2011.
During the tour, the couple were accompanied by their children, Prince George and Princess Charlotte.
Justin greeted the royals upon their arrival in Victoria. A clip of his futile attempts to high five and shake hands with George, who was three at the time, went viral, according to The Guardian.
REUTERS/Amit Dave
On several occasions during the visit, the Trudeau family were photographed appearing to dress in traditional Indian clothing. At the time, it triggered a lot of discussion on social media and among prominent Indian personalities about whether their outfits could be considered cultural appropriation.
REUTERS/Carlo Allegri
During his victory speech, Justin thanked Sophie and told her he loved her according to a transcript shared by Macleans.
"First of all, my Sophie. We began this political adventure together ten years ago because we believed in a better future, because we knew that it was worthwhile fighting for a better, more prosperous Canada. Sophie, I love you," he said.
Justin also shared praise for all three of his children, whom he said inspire him "to do more and do better."
"And everything I do, I do for you and for your generation," he said. "You remind me every single day that I have to take some time to appreciate the life we have and how lucky we are.
REUTERS/Blair Gable
"Can you hold my hand," Justin told Sophie in a 2021 video shared by Global News before receiving his dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Previously in 2020, Sophie tested positive for the coronavirus and Justin and their children had to isolate. The New York Times reported that Justin took on full parenting duties while Sophie was sick.
"You could hear the kids running around laughing, and playing in the background, and coming over saying, 'Come on daddy, let's do this,'" Ben Chin, the prime minister's senior adviser, told The New York Times, adding: "You heard the half-muffled reasonable dad voice: 'Daddy's on an important phone call right now. I can't do that.'"
REUTERS/Carlos Osorio
According to CBC, the anti COVID-19 vaccination protester began yelling profanities at Justin before an interview with Global News in Burnaby, British Columbia. The interview was supposed to take place outside but moved indoors when the individual began shouting obscenities at Justin and making derogatory remarks about Sophie.
In a video of the interaction, Justin responded to the protestor by asking: "Isn't there a hospital you should be going to bother right now?"
A day later, Justin defended his comment. "He went after my family. He said hateful, misogynistic things about my wife," he said.
"I signed up for this. My family believes deeply in what I'm doing and put up with an awful lot. But everyone has limits," Justin added. "I will always be there to try to push back when someone crosses those lines."
Jared Siskin/Getty Images for National Alliance for Eating Disorders
Sophie appeared on the "Good Wife/Bad Wife, Good Mom/Bad Mom" episode of Archetypes.
Introducing Sophie, Meghan called her a "dear friend," a mother, a wife, a humanitarian, and activist who she'd known for roughly seven years.
During the podcast, Sophie said women should continue to challenge societal expectations put on them when they become wives and mothers.
"We all long to be free in who we are," she said. "We often define freedom as a way to be free from the world, but it's really a way to be free in the world."
REUTERS/Blair Gable
Sophie and Justin were last photographed in public for a Canada Day event in Ottawa on July 1.
Just over a month later on August 2, the couple shared nearly identical statements in both French and English on Instagram announcing their separation.
"Hi everyone, Sophie and I would like to share the fact that after many meaningful and difficult conversations, we have made the decision to separate. As always, we remain a close family with deep love and respect for each other and for everything we have built and will continue to build," the statement posted to Justin's account read.
"For the well-being of our children, we ask that ou respect our and their privacy. Thank you," it concluded.
The couple have not announced if they plan to seek a divorce, through Reuters reported Justin's office said they had signed a legal document and will be focusing on raising their children.
A source told the publication that Sophie is set to move out of Rideau Cottage, the official residence of the prime minister where she and Justin's children will remain living. The source said she will continue to spend time there.
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