Former Canadian PM Justin Trudeau is dating Katy Perry – and this is why it makes more sense than you think

Let’s call it a PDF. A Post Divorce Flex. A celebrity marriage breaks down, one partner moves out, lawyers are called in, stuff and real estate gets divided, co-parenting strategies are mapped out and access to dogs is agreed on. From then on, it’s a race to see who can date the hottest, most glamorous and famous person first. A new, younger and shinier partner to be seen out and about with – essentially flexing that newfound freedom with a happy confidence that says, “I’ve moved on!”

But as the former Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau makes it official with pop star Katy Perry, by holding hands after a date at the Crazy Horse Cabaret in Paris for her birthday, you have to ask, who’s flexing who exactly?

Is it multi-platinum-selling “Queen of Camp” hitmaker Katy, 41 – engaged to actor Orlando Bloom for five years, mother to his daughter Daisy Dove Bloom, and said to be worth around half a billion dollars (American $, not Canadian, obvs) – who is showing offJustin T? “Look at me! I used to be engaged to Legolas from fictional Middle-earth; now I’m dating a man who was a real world leader!”

Or is it the recently separated, now former Canadian prime minister Trudeau – married for 18 years to Sophie Gregoire, and a father to three children – who is flexing Katy like smooth maple syrup in his tight black T-shirt? “I was in a safe but dull, grown-up marriage to a first lady; now I’m walking out with a hot California pop-star girl... who kisses other girls!”

Perry and Trudeau first began fuelling dating rumours in July, when the pair were photographed out in Montreal. Trudeau then attended the singer’s Lifetimes Tour stop in the city two days later. Earlier this month, the “Firework” singer and her new beau were photographed on a yacht in Santa Barbara, California. And what did they talk about? Perhaps the common ground of parallel career slumps was something to bond over, politician and pop star having both endured recent, high-profile, career lows in 2025.

This was the year that super-liberal golden boy Trudeau turned into an unpopular and unvoteable political pariah, forced to resign as leader at the will of his own party. Meanwhile, Perry’s recent 143 album sold dismally, and her clunky live performances were widely ridiculed on social media... not to mention the cringey optics of that Jeff Bezos-funded farrago into outer space. So maybe the TruPerry/J-Kat union makes sense, as two currently un-hot celebrities making one battleworn but hyper-hot (and age-appropriate) couple?

Then again, the whole post-split rebound situation may all be part of a classic midlife crisis playbook that every newly single man in his fifties (yes, even this writer) falls into. And that particular script is basically a set of dumb, free and single lifestyle choices that revolve around showing off, trying out “new things”, indulging in frequent and unnecessary (and undignified) displays of buffness, and making questionable choices that are perhaps 10 or 15 years too young for a 53-year-old man.

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The signs are there that this is where the J-Kat, TruPerry coupling is at. It’s not so much a match made in heaven as a midlife meltdown in motion. With Trudeau, it began with getting a Canadian Haida Raven tattoo on his 40th birthday, shown off on a muscly shoulder during a televised charity boxing match (fighting against Canadian senator Patrick Brazeau – Trudeau won, obvs).

Not long after the split from Gregoire, we were served shirtless pap shots of JT and KP canoodling on a yacht. And have you noticed how single Justin is now rocking that sartorial mullet of a combo – suits with trainers? More specifically, green and orange Adidas Gazelles with a Ted Baker whistle, to meet King Charles earlier this year.

While in power (and in wedlock), the PM used to travel around Ottawa in a series of boring Chevrolet Suburban people-movers. Nowadays, Trudeau’s ride of choice is the ultimate single man’s machine – a two-seater, pop-video-worthy 1960 Mercedes Benz 300SL roadster, inherited from his father. A trip to Coachella or the Burning Man festival must surely be on the TruPerry ’26 schedule.

This is the silly, regrettable stuff that happens when apparently sensible middle-aged people split up. Usually, the sort of amicable and respectful uncoupling one might hope for, prioritising minimal emotional harm and reframing the breakup not as a failure, but as a transition to a new life, does not play out.

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It’s more of a sprint to the apps, and the one who gets spotted out with the fittest, cleverest, best-looking date first, wins. Reader, I did this too. Married for 20 years then divorced at 50, I was a PDF-ing cliche. Instead of a four-million-dollar Merc, a convertible Saab. No body ink, but definitely a few more buttons undone on my shirts, and some marked post-divorce weight loss (caused more by stress than by diet and gym visits). Best of all? A gazelle-legged fashion model on my arm at a high-profile media event. Was I ever so young and foolish?

Of course, the Trudeau boys have stellar form here. Justin’s dad, his predecessor as Canadian PM, aka “Swinging Pierre” and “Trendy Trudeau”, was an A-list modeliser and flexer. Trudeau senior dated Barbra Streisand, Superman actress Margot Kidder, and even Sex and the City star Kim Cattrall. “There’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation,” he once said.

In 1991, following the breakdown of his 13-year marriage to wife Margaret Trudeau, Pierre Trudeau fathered a daughter with Deborah Coyne, a lawyer who ran for leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada in a 2013 election. Coyne came in fifth, soundly beaten by one Justin Trudeau... who won.

Pierre Trudeau, however, never wore Adidas Gazelle sneakers with a suit – the clearest sign yet that his son may not be cut from the same cloth, however much he thinks he is.