Ottawa, Canada—Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced he and his wife of 18 years, Sophie Gregoire-Trudeau, are separating.
In a post on Instagram, the prime minister said “that after many meaningful and difficult conversations, we have made the decision to separate.”
A statement from his office added the couple have signed “a legal separation agreement.”
It said the public can expect to continue seeing them and their three children together as “they remain a close family” and both parents will be a “constant presence in their children’s lives.”
But they asked for privacy ahead of a family vacation scheduled for next week.
Trudeau and his wife, a former entertainment reporter, were childhood friends and reconnected in 2003 while cohosting a charity ball.
They soon started dating and married in 2005 in Montreal.
They have three children together: Xavier, 15, Ella Grace, 14, and nine-year-old Hadrien.
The separation is the first for a Canadian prime minister since Trudeau’s late father Pierre Trudeau, who split from Margaret Trudeau in the late 1970s and eventually divorced in 1984 during his final months in office.
In his 2014 memoir “Common Ground,” the younger Trudeau recalled that the “dark drama” at home and his parents’ eventual divorce had been hard on him.
His own breakup comes as Trudeau’s ruling Liberals are struggling in the polls against the opposition Conservatives ahead of elections expected before the end of 2025.
Trudeau announced last week a major shakeup in his Cabinet with the stated goal of strengthening his economic team ahead of that looming campaign. AFP