Last August, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Sophie Gregoire announced their separation. They are still in the process of their divorce, and the biggest scandal might involve Sophie and not Justin Trudeau. Reportedly, Sophie might have been the one screwing around, and it was reported in Canadian outlets that she began seeing an Argentinian doctor before her split with Justin was announced. After the split, she moved out of the prime minister’s government home. She and Justin split custody of their three kids and everything is going smoothly. That’s a big part of Sophie’s new interview in the Times of London. She’s doing a “post-split” interview, but she’s also promoting her new book, Closer Together. It’s part memoir, part-self-help book, apparently. Sophie chatted with the Times about Justin, her kids, how much she loves Michelle Obama and more. Of course, the British media is making a big deal over Sophie’s refusal to be drawn into their obsession with all things Meghan Markle. Meghan is friendly with the Trudeaus, and Sophie appeared on Meghan’s Archetypes podcast. Some highlights from the Times:
Her split from Justin Trudeau: “You used the word break-up, right? I don’t feel that way. [Conscious uncoupling is] the only expression that exists that’s close enough. I wish I could come up with a new, a new… We don’t have to dramatise, end abruptly, break relationships in order to restructure our lives and our minds. And something changed, yes, something broke; I am not sure that’s how I mean it.”
She & Justin get along just fine: “You know, in some ways it’s boring for some people because we’ve always been truthful to each other. We don’t hold secrets. That’s not the dynamic we have. And let me be honest: in some ways I’m very proud of how we — not how the world thinks of us — how we navigate this. When we’re together and we look at each other, that’s what counts.”
Life outside the prime-minister bubble: She cheerfully explains that while she no longer has a protection detail nor governmental duties, her life hasn’t really changed that much since the separation. She lives in a “little” flat not far from the current prime ministerial residence, the 22-room Rideau Cottage. Her and Trudeau’s three children — Xavier, 16, Ella-Grace, 15, and Hadrien, 10 — come and go between the two houses at will. She and Trudeau seem to be very close. “We are still all hanging out together: we love each other, we spend time together. It’s organic — you know, the kids all sleeping together one night, that’s fine. And I have a little space for me and sometimes the kids come there, and we’re just so close to each other that we do it organically. And it feels good, it feels natural. It doesn’t feel forced. It feels heartwarming.”
Back to work: Now, for the first time since quitting her job as a TV journalist when her children were young, she is going back to work — hosting yoga retreats, continuing her mental health activism and promoting her book.
On the Duchess of Sussex: When I bring up Meghan Markle, who did an interview with Grégoire Trudeau on her podcast where she gushed about a day spent hanging out at the pool with her and her children, where they got “giddy like absolute schoolgirls”, she does not gush back. “I know her,” she says, before adding that they haven’t spent much time together, and telling me how terrible she feels for Kate Middleton after her cancer diagnosis (“my heart just sunk when I saw what was happening”).
Her new boyfriend? Trudeau Junior’s split is playing out under a stronger spotlight. Everyone I speak to in Ottawa has an opinion on it, particularly on the rumours that Grégoire Trudeau had started dating the aforementioned surgeon some time before the split was announced. In February she was pictured going out for dinner with Marcos Bettolli, an Argentinian paediatrician, and her children. His ex-wife claimed in divorce papers filed last spring that Betolli had “repartnered” with a “high-profile individual”, named by Canada’s National Post as Grégoire Trudeau.
Re: Sophie and Marcos Bettolli… from the way she’s talking about her split with Trudeau, I get the impression that she was the one who wanted a divorce, and that there were many months of loose separation before their announcement. But yeah, it also sounds like she was cheating and she left her husband for this doctor.
As for her comments about Meghan… my guess is that all of Meghan’s friends and family know that they cannot engage in any way with a British journalist whatsoever. This interviewer was desperate to bring the conversation around to Meghan – Sophie just shut it down.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Avalon Red.