A date? Just dinner? Doesn't matter. Justin Trudeau, Katy Perry buzz is good for their embattled brands
TMZ photos and video of Perry and Trudeau talking to each other Monday night at a table for two at Le Violon, a fine-dining establishment run by celebrity chef Danny Smiles, set off a swirl of speculation.
Perry, who recently split from actor Orlando Bloom, brought her Lifetimes concert tour to Montreal's Bell Centre Wednesday night, where Trudeau was again caught on camera appearing to have a good time as she performed hits like Dark Horse.
A photo first shared Wednesday night by social media entertainment news account Pop Crave showed Trudeau, who separated from ex-wife Sophie Grégoire Trudeau in 2023 and resigned as prime minister earlier this year, in the crowd. A Radio-Canada cameraman at the show confirmed he spotted the former prime minister.
More videos emerged on social media, including from a fan account on X, as the night went on.
Their earlier meet-up has already sparked gossip that the pair may be dating, even though Samantha Jin, a communications consultant for Le Violon, told The Canadian Press on Tuesday there was no indication of any sort of romance in the air during their dinner together.
But when it comes to the buzz it's generating, the nature of their night out may not really matter. Both Trudeau and Perry have had a fair bit of bad press in recent years and public relations experts say their appearance together gives each a chance to change the conversation.
"I thought that for both of them, this was actually a really great brand and reputational move," said Natasha Koifman, president of NKPR, a public relations agency in Toronto.
The benefits of being seen
Koifman says that while she interpreted their dinner as more intimate than others suggest, she has little doubt they wanted to be seen, as there were likely more private options than a table by the window.
"I think that that was actually probably a strategic move," she told CBC News. "I think it elevates both of their brands, for very different reasons, to actually be seen together."
2025 wasn't the most favourable year for either Trudeau or Perry.
Trudeau, 53, saw the writing on the wall for his political future, amid plunging poll numbers and internal Liberal Party strife, and announced his resignation in January, after nearly a decade in office.
Perry, 40, has been battling headlines about her Lifetimes tour not selling out. Her space flight on Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin rocket in April, along an all-female celebrity team of space travellers, was panned to the point that The Daily Beast writer Kevin Fallon raised the question: "Why does everyone hate Katy Perry so much?"
Perry has come off as "a bit tone-deaf" and "self-indulgent" in interviews, Koifman says, and it was "just one bad move after another" that led to the pile-on from detractors.
Eric Schiffer, CEO of Reputation Management Consultants in Beverly Hills, Calif., tends to agree, saying Perry "put herself in a position where she threatened career extinction."
But he also believes Trudeau has a lot to gain from the talk about the outing, given he left office at a political low point.
"You have these two individual brands that are in, in a way, outcasts that are coming together and ... could help to rebuild each other," he said.
Celebrity factor
The meet-up was somewhat unexpected, says Sharan Kaur, a principal at public relations and crisis management firm Navigator, but there's likely added interest because it's the first big "speculation of anything" Trudeau has had, post-politics and post-marriage.
She's not surmising that it was anything other than just two people who wanted to have dinner together and says she doesn't actually think it's anyone's business.
LISTEN | Why people can't stop talking about Justin Trudeau and Katy Perry:
But it's not out of the ordinary for a political figure like Trudeau to pal around with celebrities, said Kaur, who also worked as deputy chief of staff for Trudeau's former finance minister Bill Morneau.
She says he's always had his own "celebrity vibe to him" both domestically and internationally, especially considering his high-profile family — with his twice-prime-minister father Pierre Elliott Trudeau and mother Margaret Trudeau; both had their own relationships with celebrities after their split in 1977.
But Kaur wonders if Trudeau may be trying to lean into that celebrity factor a bit more, now that he's no longer holding office.
While she agrees that the rendez-vous is good press, she wonders if it might be less helpful to Trudeau's reputation if he is trying to be seen as "the serious guy" in his post-political life.
"I would have probably avoided hanging out with celebrities in public spaces," she said, rather than feeding into pundits' narratives "that he kind of views himself as a celebrity."
WATCH | Trudeau, wife of 18 years Sophie Grégoire Trudeau separate in 2023:
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Epoch Times
30 minutes ago
- Epoch Times
Canada Renews Funding for China Student Exchange Program That Requires Allegiance to Communist Regime
Canada has renewed funding for a bilateral scholarship program that requires Chinese candidates applying to study in Canada to show allegiance to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and uphold the party's 'socialist system.' David Morrison, deputy minister of foreign affairs at Global Affairs Canada, on July 30 signed an agreement with his Chinese counterpart, executive vice minister Ma Zhaoxu, to renew the Canada-China Scholars' Exchange Program. Through the program, Ottawa funds Chinese applicants to conduct research at Canadian universities as visiting scholars for 4–12 months.
Yahoo
35 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump says new tariff rates are final, but people are skeptical
President Trump moves to impose a new round of global tariffs, including a 35% rate on Canada, set to take effect in a week. Yahoo Finance Washington Correspondent Ben Werschkul joins Market Domination to explain the White House's tiered approach and what it signals for upcoming trade talks. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Market Domination. President Trump advances his effort to reshape global trade, imposing tariffs on dozens of countries, and here with the latest, we got Yahoo Finance's Ben Werschkul. Ben? Josh, yeah, lots to digest of these numbers that were released last night, um, hiking tariffs on Canada to 35% as well as an array of rates on the rest of the world from 10 to 50% that we're going to see um, in about a week's time. You've already focused a lot already on the show on the market reaction. I want to focus a little bit on the kind of next steps of trade we're seeing, signals at least from the White House um, in the last few hours. What Trump has Trump's take on this is that these rates are set. He the words he's used is it's too late for other countries that don't like the rate they were given to negotiate even with this one week delay. Um, there's skepticism on that front, whether that's going to be the case, but that's his position in the timeline he set for new deals he threw out in this NBC interview was four weeks time, like maybe they'll be a deal in four weeks, suggesting they're pushing ahead. It's also worth noting that Trump's Truth Social has clearly been popping today on all these issues that you've already been talking about. What he actually hasn't posted about are these tariff rates. He's mentioned tariffs in in passing, but not sort of to say why why make his case for these rates. And I think that's kind of overall an attempt to kind of put tariffs um, to bed for now, say that this is the reality and that that markets and trade negotiators need to accept it. Plenty of skepticism obviously, whether this will succeed. Um, Capita we've seen it all day. Cap Economics is one example, had a note that said this is unlikely to be the final word and there's going to be a lot more back and forth there. But that is at least the White House position at the moment to put this issue, make this the reality and then move on to to other deals down the road. What about this idea, Ben, of a tiered approach to tariffs that could be taking shape here? Yeah, this this is an element of this release that that was really interesting to me. I've been looking at all day, which and it's a real shift between how this was approached now versus how it was approached in April. Just to remind folks in April, it was purely trade deficit. There was a formula that the White House put out that was essentially just the trade deficit as a percentage of GDP. That led to a lot of of really head scratching rates, 50% on small African countries, things like that. This time around, the trade deficit is still the number one factor, but it's a much more it's much more of a piece um, in in a bunch of other factors, including kind of subjective ones that the president himself can clearly decide. Um, that what it's led to as you mentioned is this kind of idea of tiers. We've seen 120 nations at 10% tariffs, 40 at 15%, 10 at 19 to 20%, and then so on upwards. Uh, it gets a little more scattered when you get higher up, but it's a clearly an attempt to kind of put these all together into one. What a White House official said is that the 10% is for folks with a trade surplus, not exclusively, but mostly, 15% is for deals and for with a small deficit, and then then it gets more bespoke further up. Um, this further up, I think is where folks should watch going forward. One that jumped out to me is that 19 this 19 to 20% rate are all southeast south southern and southeast Asian nations. You know, we saw some deals there. The outlier is India who has a 25% rate. So they're going to clearly want to be aligned um, at least with their other with their neighbors so that they're all having the same rates. So that's where a lot of the the fights going to be in the in the weeks ahead.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Talks with Trump's team constructive before boosted tariff announced, ambassador says
WASHINGTON — Canada's ambassador to the United States said much progress has been made with her American counterparts on trade — despite President Donald Trump's decision to boost tariffs on Canada to 35 per cent on Friday. Kirsten Hillman, who also serves as Canada's top negotiator with the U.S., said there have been professional and constructive conversations with Trump's team over the last three weeks. Ultimately, Hillman said, the right deal for Canada wasn't on the table. "We're just not there yet," Hillman told The Canadian Press. "We made progress and we're just not there yet." While Trump's latest tariffs appear staggering, Hillman said it's important to recognize that there is a carveout for goods compliant with the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on trade, also called CUSMA. She said that with the possible exception of Mexico, she doesn't think "there is a country that wouldn't change places with us." Trump on Thursday gave Mexico a 90-day extension on trade talks, delaying his deadline to impose a 30 per cent tariff on Mexico's non-CUSMA-compliant goods. Officials in Canada and the United States have been largely tight-lipped about the state of negotiations. Hillman said those talks have included conversations about vital sectors of the economy that are essential for economic and national security in both countries, as well as how a strong Canada helps Trump achieve some of his domestic goals. "We have, I think, unique positions of working with the U.S. in ways that are quite compatible to protect ourselves against threats from unfairly traded, maybe subsidized, maybe dumped products that make it harder for our sectors to survive because they create an unfair playing field," Hillman said. Canadian and U.S. officials have also been talking about irritants on both sides of the border linked to regulatory policies, Hillman said. Trump has long complained about Canada, misrepresenting the agriculture and dairy sectors and criticizing its spending on defence. When asked about the holdup in Canadian negotiations on Thursday, Trump said "they have to pay a fair rate." A White House official on background said Canada has demonstrated a lack of seriousness in trade discussions as it relates to removing trade barriers. Hillman said she's not discouraged but more work needs to be done, particularly on Trump's sectoral tariffs on steel, aluminum and automobiles. "The job now is to keep those discussions going and continue the progress," she said. Canadian officials have been pushing to have those sectoral duties dropped in any agreement, and U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggested Thursday that there's negotiating room on aluminum tariffs. Bessent told CNBC that Ford trucks use a lot of aluminum and "we will be negotiating with Canada on those." The United States relies heavily on aluminum imports and doesn't have the capacity domestically to make up what it buys from Canada. Hillman said prices for aluminum in the United States are now 50 per cent higher than they are in the rest of the world thanks to Trump's tariffs. "There's a very active discussion in the United States between U.S. aluminum consumers, that is to say the companies that are using that product, and their own government," she said. Carney and Trump are in fairly regular contact, Hillman said, but the prime minister has made clear that he will only take the right deal for Canada. "We'll do our best to move this along and get to a place of stability sooner rather than later, but ultimately the main job is to get the best deal for Canada," she said. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 1, 2025. Kelly Geraldine Malone, The Canadian Press Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
