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The romance rumours between them began swirling in late July, when the two were spotted having dinner together at Le Violon, a swanky restaurant in the heart of Montreal. Two days later, Trudeau was spotted attending Perry's show in the city. Videos circulated online showing him singing along to her hits "Firework" and "Teenage Dream." Then, in mid-October, images of them kissing aboard Perry's yacht off the coast of Santa Barbara, California, went viral. Neither Trudeau nor Perry have publicly spoken about their romance. Their representatives did not respond to the BBC's requests for comments. But before the weekend photos landed, the singer appeared to hint at the relationship last month during a London tour stop. A fan in the audience proposed to her shortly after photos of her and Trudeau canoodling on a yacht surfaced. "You know, you really should have asked me about 48 hours ago," Perry said. Many observers wondered what the two could have in common but both are recovering from reputational hits in their own ways. Trudeau was elected to a sweeping majority government in 2015, promising "sunny ways" and a new era of progressive politics in Canada. Abroad, he was admired for his youthful charm and the symbolic break he represented from traditional politics. It did not take long, however, for scandals to tarnish Trudeau's image. A series of luxury vacations drew criticism for being tone deaf - including one trip to the private island of the Aga Khan in the Bahamas, which was found to have violated federal conflict-of-interest laws. In 2019, Trudeau faced another controversy after old photos of him in blackface surfaced, forcing him to issue a public apology. By the end of his tenure, Canadians had grown frustrated with his political leadership and were ready to move on. As a rule, Canadian media stay mostly away from commenting on the family life of politicians. "There certainly is a reasonable respect for politicians' privacy in Canada," noted Jonathan Malloy, a professor of political science at Carleton University in Ottawa."If Mr Trudeau was dating a more ordinary individual, no one would really pay any attention." Perry, however, is anything but ordinary. In a separate but not dissimilar timeline, Perry was enjoying the height of pop stardom in the 2010s. She churned out consistent chart-topping hits, and her bold, colourful style helped define pop culture. In 2018, Billboard Magazine named her one of the greatest popstars of the 21st Century. But scandal found her, too. She was famously the frenemy that fuelled Taylor Swift's diatribe Bad Blood. Her newest album, 143, was panned by critics as her worst artistic effort to date. The Guardian called it "some way short of a total catastrophe", while The Daily Telegraph called it "disastrous". Earlier this year, she was labelled tone deaf for taking part in the six-woman space flight with Jeff Bezos' wife Lauren Sanchez and CBS anchor Gayle King. Perry acknowledged the criticism in April, saying "I'm not perfect" and that "the internet is very much a dumping ground for the unhinged and unhealed". Then came the split between her and Bloom, who she was with after her marriage to broadcaster and comedian Russell Brand fell apart in 2011. "When you're in the middle of an unfortunate storyline, the best thing you can do is move on to a different storyline," noted Los Angeles Times pop music critic Mikael Wood. The relationship with Trudeau "changes the subject from a flop album and from a tour that seemed a little thirsty and misguided and makes us talk about something else". The measured roll-out of the relationship also seemed to ease observers into the romance. Prof Rodriguez noted that the optics of them stepping out in Paris was "a high signal, low speech confirmation" of their affection that allows the visuals to do the work. "Each has weathered scrutiny so a carefully staged relationship narrative can re-index attention around vitality, optimism and cross-domain relevance," he said.
