Grégoire Trudeau opens up about separation

PM’s former wife to release memoir ‘Closer Together’

More than seven months after her separation from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau is ready to talk.

She said she imagined the “worstcase scenario” when the separation was made public but says she now feels “integrity and congruence” with her decision and told Elle Canada in a recent interview that she and Trudeau still laugh together a lot.

Grégoire Trudeau will appear on the cover of the magazine next month as she gears up for the release of her memoir, “Closer Together.”

She said deciding to separate from Trudeau was difficult.

“(I had to) face the truth (and) choose authenticity over attachment,” Grégoire Trudeau told Elle. “(I had to) sit with myself (and) say ‘OK, you need to make decisions here. And all of them will cost you. Which one (do you choose)?’ So (it was) very difficult.”

She said the decision was “filled with integrity,” although she still has days where she sits and wonders about the decisions she has made.

“Deep inside, do I feel integrity and congruence? Yes,” Grégoire Trudeau said. “So I sit with all of it. And it’s chaotic, and it’s a mess, but it’s also loving, compassionate and tender.”

She said she and Trudeau still laugh together, “and we will for a very long time.”

The couple announced their separation in August after 18 years of marriage, each issuing similar statements on social media. They have three children — Xavier, EllaGrace and Hadrien.

Post-split, the family vacationed together in Tofino, B.C., last year, appearing to hold to their pledge to “remain a close family.”

In an interview with Vogue, Grégoire Trudeau described the effort to parent her three children with Trudeau as flexible. “We don’t even have a parental sharing plan,” she said. “We go along with the kids’ schedules and we keep each other posted.”

She also did not assign blame for the separation.

“You can heal without hatred, without division, without blame,” she said. “It takes two to tango and I think we both acknowledge that.”

Comments made at a summit in the United Arab Emirates this month were taken by some to be a swipe at Trudeau.

“Your needs, you shouldn’t expect the minimum,” Grégoire Trudeau said onstage at the summit. “You should expect a maximum of nourishment, presence and help in your life with the people around you. And we shouldn’t have to hold it all together as women.”

“Closer Together,” described by publisher Penguin Random House as a “deeply personal journey toward self-knowledge, acceptance and empowerment,” will be released April 23.