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How do you change the narrative when you’re a pop star navigating a very public breakup at the same time the entire world has deemed you a laughingstock for taking a cringey trip to space, all coming just months after your most recent album absolutely flopped? It’s a scenario I wouldn’t wish on anyone, but maybe it’s true that God gives his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers, because Katy Perry figured out that there is really only one way forward at a moment like this: You go on a date with Justin Trudeau, the dreamy and recently divorced former prime minister of Canada, and you make sure evidence of said date makes its way to the internet.
TMZ reported on Tuesday that the pair shared a dinner together on Monday at Montreal’s Le Violon, which apparently is “THE hyped restaurant in mtl right now,” according to a Montréalaise Slate intern—très chic! The outlet even obtained a brief snippet of video footage of the outing in which Perry can be seen beaming at Trudeau with, I’m going to use a technical term here, total heart eyes.
Per TMZ, they had cocktails and shared several dishes, including one with lobster, and after they were finished, they visited the kitchen to personally thank the staff. We don’t have confirmation that this was a date, so it’s possible that Trudeau was merely showing some hospitality to a visiting foreign dignitary, but at the same time it sure looked like a date, and it seems notable that neither party did much to dispel that impression. I might even go so far as to speculate that they wanted to be seen together, that the whole purpose of the dinner was for it to get out that this California Gurl had ventured north of the border.
And to that I say: Checkmate, Katy Perry. Perry has been having a rough year, and her public relations strategy has frequently not helped matters—I’m thinking not just of her decision to participate in Blue Origin’s much-hyped all-female “space trip” in the first place but of whoever decided to pick a fight with the Wendy’s X account on her behalf afterward. This, though? This is the first glimmer of hope I’ve had about Perry in a while. All I’m saying is show me another pop star who could get away with something so ludicrously silly as going on a date with Justin Trudeau.
How did she get Trudeau to play along? I bet it wasn’t even that hard. Trudeau parted with his wife of 18 years, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, in 2023, and announced this January that he was resigning as prime minister and leader of Canada’s Liberal Party. Though Americans may be more familiar with the Trudeau of 10 years ago, when he was first elected and was not only hunky but full of political promise, lately his reputation has nosedived. By the end of his time in office, his popularity had sunk to an all-time low, meaning his career has followed a trajectory not unlike Perry’s, both having peaked in the last decade and struggled to attain their former glory. Trudeau’s ex has moved on since their split, but the former PM himself hadn’t publicly been linked to anyone until now, so maybe we should take the date with Perry as a signal that he’s ready to mingle—if nothing else, a date with Perry positions him as an attractive prospect. At 40, she’s even kind of age-appropriate to his 53.
As for what this accomplishes for Perry: As rumors about who her ex, Orlanda Bloom, may be seeing post-breakup go into overdrive, it’s never a bad thing to remind the world that you’ve still got it. Trudeau is not necessarily cool, nor are his politics unimpeachable, but that’s fine, because this is exactly what I want from Perry, in all its ridiculousness—maybe-fake-dating Justin Trudeau is fundamentally in line with, and perhaps even the rightful continuation of, her identity as a person who once wore a bra with whipped cream canisters attached to it.
As much as I—and seemingly half the internet—love the idea of this romance, I’m not holding out much hope that the two are really going to be something. But I simply love that this happened and will cherish it as a gift. In the same way Perry and Trudeau thanked the kitchen staff after their romantic meal, this is me thanking them for crafting us such a fine morsel of gossip. My compliments to the chef.
