Nadine Yousif,Senior Canada reporter and
Nardine Saad,in Los Angeles
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It is a pairing that few could have predicted: a former Prime Minister of Canada and an American pop star who has toured the world and reached the edge of space.
Justin Trudeau and Katy Perry have made it official. The couple was spotted by paparazzi holding hands in Paris last weekend as they left the Crazy Horse cabaret, where they had been celebrating Perry’s 41st birthday.
While they may seem an unlikely duo, Trudeau and Perry – who have both been in the spotlight for the better part of the last decade – have more in common than some might think. And their budding romance is not entirely unprecedented in the lexicon of Canadian political history.
The pairing also offers a rare glimpse into the private life of Trudeau, who became a global progressive icon after he was catapulted into Canada’s highest office in 2015, since he was forced to resign from politics earlier this year after his popularity plummeted.
Perry, similarly, had faced an assortment of undesirable headlines in the last year.
Her most recent album and tour got poor reviews, a highly publicised trip she took on a Blue Origin Space Flight was widely mocked, and she and actor Orlando Bloom announced their breakup after nearly a decade together.
The relationship is a “rebranding for both of them in a very interesting and unexpected way”, said Jose Rodriguez, a professor of Communication Studies at California State University Long Beach.
Partnering with a statesman creates a credible bridge for Perry into civic and philanthropic endeavours, he added. It expands her audience and access to a politically engaged public and global organisations outside the music industry.
For Trudeau, 53, the California Girls singer helps his new persona because she’s in “a softer arena with pop culture and music”, Mr Rodriguez said, rather than the tough world of politics where he had already been bruised and battered.
At the core of it is simple human connection, too, observers noted. Both are newly single – Trudeau and his wife separated in 2023 – and this is the first high-profile romance post-split for both.
Changing the conversation
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Trudeau resigned in January after nearly a decade in power due to his plummeting popularity in Canada.
The romance rumours between them began swirling in late July, when the two were spotted having dinner together at Le Violon, a swanky restaurant in the heart of Montreal.
Two days later, Trudeau was spotted attending Perry’s show in the city. Videos circulated online showing him singing along to her hits “Firework” and “Teenage Dream.”
Then, in mid-October, images of them kissing aboard Perry’s yacht off the coast of Santa Barbara, California, went viral.
Neither Trudeau nor Perry have publicly spoken about their romance. Their representatives did not respond to the BBC’s requests for comments. But before the weekend photos landed, the singer appeared to hint at the relationship last month during a London tour stop.
A fan in the audience proposed to her shortly after photos of her and Trudeau canoodling on a yacht surfaced.
“You know, you really should have asked me about 48 hours ago,” Perry said.
Many observers wondered what the two could have in common but both are recovering from reputational hits in their own ways.
Trudeau was elected to a sweeping majority government in 2015, promising “sunny ways” and a new era of progressive politics in Canada. Abroad, he was admired for his youthful charm and the symbolic break he represented from traditional politics.
It did not take long, however, for scandals to tarnish Trudeau’s image. A series of luxury vacations drew criticism for being tone deaf – including one trip to the private island of the Aga Khan in the Bahamas, which was found to have violated federal conflict-of-interest laws. In 2019, Trudeau faced another controversy after old photos of him in blackface surfaced, forcing him to issue a public apology.
By the end of his tenure, Canadians had grown frustrated with his political leadership and were ready to move on.
As a rule, Canadian media stay mostly away from commenting on the family life of politicians.
“There certainly is a reasonable respect for politicians’ privacy in Canada,” noted Jonathan Malloy, a professor of political science at Carleton University in Ottawa.”If Mr Trudeau was dating a more ordinary individual, no one would really pay any attention.”
Perry, however, is anything but ordinary.
In a separate but not dissimilar timeline, Perry was enjoying the height of pop stardom in the 2010s. She churned out consistent chart-topping hits, and her bold, colourful style helped define pop culture. In 2018, Billboard Magazine named her one of the greatest popstars of the 21st Century.
But scandal found her, too. She was famously the frenemy that fuelled Taylor Swift’s diatribe Bad Blood. Her newest album, 143, was panned by critics as her worst artistic effort to date. The Guardian called it “some way short of a total catastrophe”, while The Daily Telegraph called it “disastrous”.
Earlier this year, she was labelled tone deaf for taking part in the six-woman space flight with Jeff Bezos’ wife Lauren Sanchez and CBS anchor Gayle King. Perry acknowledged the criticism in April, saying “I’m not perfect” and that “the internet is very much a dumping ground for the unhinged and unhealed”.
Then came the split between her and Bloom, who she was with after her marriage to broadcaster and comedian Russell Brand fell apart in 2011.
“When you’re in the middle of an unfortunate storyline, the best thing you can do is move on to a different storyline,” noted Los Angeles Times pop music critic Mikael Wood.
The relationship with Trudeau “changes the subject from a flop album and from a tour that seemed a little thirsty and misguided and makes us talk about something else”.
The measured roll-out of the relationship also seemed to ease observers into the romance.
Prof Rodriguez noted that the optics of them stepping out in Paris was “a high signal, low speech confirmation” of their affection that allows the visuals to do the work.
“Each has weathered scrutiny so a carefully staged relationship narrative can re-index attention around vitality, optimism and cross-domain relevance,” he said.
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Justin Trudeau and Sophie Grégoire Trudeau announced their split after 18 years of marriage in 2023.
A match made in heaven?
The pair do have things in common.
She and Trudeau are ideologically aligned, Mr Kennedy observed. The two, he said, are “anti-establishment” disruptors in their respective fields.
Perry herself is no stranger to activism and politics. She performed at multiple campaign events in 2016 for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and publicly endorsed Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.
She is a vocal advocate for LGBTQ rights and has supported various feminist charities and causes – issues that Trudeau had also publicly backed (he famously made gender-parity in cabinet central to his policy).
They also each appear to be dedicated parents to their young children. Perry’s four-year-old daughter, Daisy, features frequently on her Instagram. Trudeau’s Instagram shows he spent the summer taking each of his three children on separate holidays.
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Katy Perry recently ended a nine-year relationship with actor Orlando Bloom, with whom she shares a daughter.
By dating Perry, Trudeau is charting a different path post-politics than his predecessors, who often go on to take high-level consulting gigs or join law firms. It is, however, par for the course for a prime minister who was always unusual, said Michael Mulvey, a marketing professor at the University of Ottawa.
While other Canadian prime ministers have typically come from a law or an economics background, Trudeau was a teacher before he entered politics.
And as the son of a former prime minister, Pierre Eliott Trudeau, he grew up in the spotlight. One of his earliest photos is of him as an infant being held by former US First Lady Pat Nixon.
After his separation from his wife, the youngest Trudeau could not escape the inevitable comparisons to his father, who had also separated from his first wife and the mother of his children, Margaret Trudeau, while in office.
The parallels don’t stop there. The senior Trudeau had a couple of famous flings of his own with American singer Barbra Streisand and Canadian actress Kim Cattrall of Sex and the City fame.
“There’s no question that we see history repeating itself,” said Prof Malloy.
That extraordinary life and upbringing has always made Trudeau a target for those who dislike him. For some, his union with Perry is a reminder of that.
But Prof Mulvey noted that there are others who connect with his human experience of being a newly single dad navigating the dating world.
Not long after his exit from politics, Trudeau posted a photo of himself buying kitchenware at a Canadian Tire department store, which commentators took as him signaling the start of his “divorced dad era”.
“There are probably some people that hope he gets it together, has a cooling off period from the post-divorce trauma and gets on with his life,” Prof Mulvey said.
