On the day Justin Trudeau announced his intention to resign as Canada’s prime minister and Liberal party leader, PM’s former spouse Sophie Grégoire didn’t offer up a public statement regarding his decision.
Instead, the author and self-help entrepreneur stuck close to her usual narrative and shared a post about mental health on her Instagram story.
“My mental health really changed when I stopped asking myself ‘Why am I so emotional?’ and started asking ‘What is my body trying to tell me right now?’” reads the graphic created by @letstalk.mentalhealth and shared by California-based psychiatrist Daniel G. Amen.
“Read that again,” the text ends.
‘It hurts’: Sophie Grégoire speaks on cutting ties and bouncing back from heartbreak
It appeared on Grégoire’s account roughly six hours after Trudeau stood in front of Rideau Cottage in Ottawa to deliver news of his departure.
Over the holiday season, the 53-year-old prime minister said he spoke with his “family” at length “about our future.”
“Throughout the course of my career, any success I have personally achieved has been because of their support and with their encouragement,” Trudeau said Monday morning.
“So last night, over dinner, I told my kids about the decision that I’m sharing with you today.”
Part of those holidays were spent skiing at the RED Mountain Resort in Rossland, B.C., where a woman confronted him and one of his children, telling him to “Please get f–k out of B.C.” after shaking his hand. Trudeau was accompanied by one of his children.
Trudeau’s response: “Have a wonderful day, ma’am.”
Based on Grégoire’s most recent Instagram post, the 49-year-old was also in the Kootenay mountain region during the holidays.
“Red Mountain slopes, powder and people; you rock,” she wrote in a post of various images and videos from their ski trip set to Steppenwolf’s iconic “Born to be Wild.”
“Thank you for an epic time! SHRED RED!”
The prime minister is not seen in any of the photos or videos.
The summit is significant to the Trudeau family: it’s the skil hill where Michel Trudeau, the PM’s older brother, worked in 1998 when he was killed during an avalanche in nearby Kokanee Glacier Park.
This year’s trip isn’t the first time the former couple have travelled together with family since they mutually announced their separation in August 2023, then stating that they would still spend time together as a family. A week later, the Trudeaus and their three children — Xavier, 17, Ella-Grace 15 and Hadrien, 10 — vacationed in B.C.
“I got a really good 10 days with the family to focus on the kids, to focus on being together and moving forward,” Trudeau said at the time.
“I really, really want to thank Canadians for having been so incredibly gracious and incredibly generous in respecting our privacy and our space,” he added.
Pictures on social media also show many family dinners and celebrations at Rideau Cottage in the 18 months since the split following 18 years of marriage.
They also reportedly spent part of last Christmas together in Jamaica.
After the separation was announced, government sources said that Grégoire had already moved out of Rideau Cottage but would visit often as a co-parent to the kids.
Grégoire has reportedly “re-partnered” with Ottawa-area pediatric surgeon Dr. Marcos Bettolli.
In April, she released Closer Together: Knowing Ourselves, Loving Each Other, an autobiographical approach to the self-help genre book and the first of two with Penguin Random House Canada. Her second, due in 2025, will be a picture book about nature.
During an interview on the Next Question with Katie Couric podcast while promoting Closer Together, Grégoire said the breakup with Trudeau still “hurts deeply,” but they still communicate.
“We are still bound by love and respect and smiles and tears, and we’re still trying to figure it out,” she told the broadcaster.
She reiterated the feelings while speaking in a virtual wellness summit called “Bouncing Back from a Broken Heart” in November.
“There’s still so much love and relationship and closeness in our family,” she said. “Even though our relationship is transforming, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.”
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