Unexpected Couples: Celebrities Who’ve Dated Politicians, Including Katy Perry and Justin Trudeau

Katy Perry confirmed her relationship with former Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau this week when they packed on the PDA during a yacht trip. 

The singer, 40, was pictured kissing the politician, 53, on board her boat off the coast of Santa Barbara, California, The Mail on Sunday revealed. 

Speculation about a budding romance between the pair had been rife since July when they were spotted having an intimate dinner in Montreal. However, both have refused to comment on their relationship status.

Justin’s father, the dashing Pierre, was Canada’s much-loved prime minister from 1968-1984 and dated a string of celebrities himself. 

A bachelor when he was elected to the top job, Pierre dated actresses Barbra Streisand and Kim Cattrall. 

So, as Katy isn’t the only celebrity to have dated a politician, here is a number of stars who have also enjoyed rather surprising relationships. 

Kim Cattrall

Sex and the City star Kim Cattrall is believed to have dated former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in 1981.

‘He was so incredibly sexy. He was very soft-spoken, incredibly smart, sensitive,’ the actress once said. 

In 2016, CBS were forced to make an embarrassing apology after they mistook actress Kim for the Canadian prime minister Justin’s mother.

During the 60 Minutes feature with Justin, a photo of the Sex and the City star with his father Pierre was shown as the interviewer spoke about his mother Margaret.

The picture was taken in 1981, while the actress was on a date with the then-Canadian prime minister. 

Barbra Streisand

Before dating Kim, Pierre also enjoyed a relationship with Barbra Streisand which began in in the late-1960s. 

The actress was 27, while he was 50, which she later said was the reason why their relationship didn’t work out. 

Writing in her memoir, My Name Is Barbra, she recalled first meeting him in 1968 at the premiere for her film Funny Girl.

In the publication she admitted how she had said to a friend: ‘That’s the kind of man I’d like to date’ before reconnecting with him the following year. 

Barbra added: ‘Trudeau was very dapper, intelligent, intense … kind of a combination of Albert Einstein and Napoleon (only taller). And he was doing important work. I was dazzled.

‘He was so elegant, yet totally unpretentious and perpetually curious … an adventurer who had backpacked through the Middle East and Asia as a young man.’ 

After dating for a short amount of time, Barbra became ‘scared of the intensity’ and admitted: ‘But for me, there was something missing. My brain was in love, but not my body.’ 

The two remained friends until his death in 2000, after which she said: ‘The world lost a great leader and I lost a great friend.’

Elizabeth Taylor 

Elizabeth Taylor, one of the great Hollywood beauties, led an infamously scandalous life with many men and a mindboggling eight marriages, to seven different men. 

Her sixth husband US senator John Warner, who she first met on a blind date in 1976 after she had broken up with Richard Burton for the second time.

They said ‘I do’ that December on Warner’s farm near Middleburg, Virginia, and his marriage to a movie star drew huge crowds when he was elected to the Senate in 1978. However, their marriage was short-lived and they divorced in 1982.

The actress wrote later that they remained friends, but she ‘just couldn’t bear the intense loneliness’ when he became engrossed in his Senate duties.

During the marriage, Elizabeth, known for her seductive violet eyes and once spectacular figure – unhappy with her life as a senator’s wife in the ritzy and conservative Georgetown enclave – ate and drank so much that she ballooned 40 pounds to more than 170 pounds. 

She told Larry King in 2001: ‘Well, I thought we would get married, live on the farm, raise horses… And I thought it would be all very sort of farmish, and jobby, horsey, and I could have animals, and I would go out and brand the cattle.’

‘I don’t think I’ve ever been so alone in my life as when I was Mrs. Senator, and I don’t blame my ex-husband,’ Taylor wrote in her 1987 book ‘Elizabeth Takes Off.’ 

‘He never pretended to be anything but a man devoted to public service, and once that service began in earnest, I had to take a backseat to his constituency.’

Jane Fonda 

After Jane Fonda officially finalised her divorce from Roger Vadim in 1973 she went on to marry her second husband, left-wing activist and politician Tom Hayden, just three days later.

The couple held their nuptials at an intimate ceremony at her home in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles, and would soon welcome son Troy. 

They channeled their energies into tackling civil rights and antiwar causes, including founding the Indochina Peace campaign, which advocated to end American involvement in the Vietnam War and to end funding for the South Vietnam military.

In 1977, the couple went one step further with their philanthropy when they bought land in California to set up a performing arts summer camp for disadvantaged children.

The camp, which was called Laurel Springs and ran for 14 years, used creativity as a way to build self-esteem and cooperation among children of all races and socio-economic backgrounds.

It was there that the couple met Mary Williams – a child of Black Panther Party members.

Jane quickly struck up a mother-daughter relationship with the youngster and went on to officially adopt the then 16-year-old in 1982.

The couple eventually decided to call it quits after 17 years of marriage and finalized their divorce in 1990. 

She later confessed that she used to hide her Oscars during her 17-year marriage to activist Tom to ‘play down the Hollywood part of herself’. 

Montel Williams

Popular talk show host Montel Williams dated 49th vice president of the United States Kamala Harris back in 2001. 

The presidential hopeful was working for the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office at the time when a photo of her and Montel ran in Ebony and Jet after they attended a gala event in Los Angeles. 

She was identified as his girlfriend in both outlets.

Daily Mail obtained video from the event that shows Harris walking the red carpet while holding Williams’ hand and then posing for photographers with her arm around his waist.

The former couple had plenty in common, including a commitment to public service as Montel served in both the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Navy.

The relationship between the two was a brief one, and by the following year Williams was seen at events with a new lady love while Harris was preparing to launch her successful campaign for District Attorney of San Francisco. 

He would go on to marry third wife Tara Folwer in 2006, while Harris settled down in 2014 with Douglas Emhoff. 

The Cheeky Girl’s Gabriela Irimia 

Former Lib Dem leader for Wales, Lembit Öpik attracted widespread ridicule for his fling with ‘Cheeky Girl’ Gabriela Irimia, setting off a chain of events that – according to Öpik – ultimately led to his dramatic fall from grace.

When he started dating weather presenter Siân Lloyd in 2002, he was ‘flattered’ to be welcomed into the glittering world of celebrity, and appearances on Have I Got News For You and Who Wants to be a Millionaire soon followed.

But a chance meeting with Romanian ‘Cheeky Girl’ Gabriela Irimia swiftly followed his split with then-fiancée Lloyd (despite popular belief he insists his burgeoning relationship was not in any way linked to the end of their engagement).

Öpik and Irimia met while appearing on Channel 5’s The All Star Talent Show – he playing the harmonica and she doing ballet – and romance soon blossomed.

The couple, who had a 17-year age gap, became instant tabloid catnip and his love life soon eclipsed his career in the eyes of the public. 

They dated on and off for over two years – with Irimia hailing him ‘the best lover I’ve ever had’ – and were even briefly engaged after Öpik popped the question in front of Rome’s Trevi Fountain.

Their engagement lasted just four months, with work commitments ultimately forcing them apart.

Marylin Monroe

Marilyn Monroe is as much defined by her talent and legacy as a global sex symbol was rumoured to have had a torrid affair with President John F Kennedy. 

For decades, rumours swirled that she was killed over her romantic relationships with  the president and his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy.

Three months after she took the stage of Madison Square Garden in a sultry, skin-tight dress to wish President Kennedy a ‘happy birthday’ – she was found dead in her Brentwood home, at the age of 36 from a ‘probable overdose.’ 

Gossip columnist Dorothy Kilgallen noted at the time: ‘It seemed like Marilyn was making love to the president in front of 40 million Americans.’ 

Marilyn’s on-and-off affair with John Kennedy began in the early 1950s when he was then just a Senator from Massachusetts, and a relative unknown in Hollywood. 

‘No one ever expected Jack to become the president or the nominee,’ said Monroe’s longtime confident, Arthur James in a Netflix documentary. He was ‘just some smart-a** rich man’s son that became a senator.’ 

At the time, the actress was experiencing a rapid decline in her mental health.

‘Whatever the exact nature of the Kennedy brothers’ relationship with Marilyn, they were playing with fire,’ said investigative journalist Anthony Summers in the doc. ‘Those who wanted to get the dirt on Jack and Bobby Kennedy.’

Carla Bruni 

Italian-French former model Carla Bruni married France’s former president Nicholas Sarkozy following a whirlwind romance in 2008. 

Speaking to Harper’s Bazaar earlier this year, she said she isn’t a ‘revolutionary person’ and would never have ‘entered politics on my own’ if it wasn’t for love.

‘I don’t like big movements or militias. I don’t even like politics or power. I don’t believe in human action. I believe more in the Universe, in the sacred.’

Nicholas was president between 2007-2012, with Carla admiting she lived in fear her husband would be assassinated. But despite the struggles, it was an honour to serve as First Lady.

‘It was an extraordinary time, but I was scared all the time. ‘I was scared all the time for my husband, I was scared for myself, that I’d do something I wasn’t supposed to do.

‘I was afraid someone who tell or make up a story. It’s such a high role, I felt I was a target,’ she told local daily talk show Quotidien in 2020. 

This month, Nicholas was sentenced to five years behind bars after being found guilty of criminal conspiracy over efforts by close aides to procure funds for his 2007 presidential bid from Libya during the rule of late dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

He was acquitted by a Paris court of all other charges, including corruption and receiving illegal campaign financing.

Sarkozy has already said he will appeal the verdict, which he denounced as ‘extremely serious for rule of law’.

Carla’s biographer Besma Lahouri wrote in The Times: ‘While she waits for her own fate to be decided, Bruni, an excellent cook, will visit her husband every day, I’m willing to bet. 

‘Smart, bright and fiercely loyal, she will move heaven and earth to get him out of prison as quickly as possible.’ 

Cheryl Hines 

Actress Cheryl Hines has been married to the current United States secretary of health and human services, Robert Kennedy Jr., since 2014. 

They married in a low-key but starry celebration in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.

She wore a Jackie Kennedy inspired dress, guests dined on steamed lobster and a clam bake and Natasha Bedingfield serenaded the couple with her hit song, ‘Unwritten.’ 

However, this year, sources told the Daily Mail exclusively that Cheryl is ‘absolutely still recovering from the emotional shock and pain’ she received last September when her husband got caught up in a scandalous sexting affair with a woman half his age that ignited divorce chatter.

They have now seemingly made up. 

‘Cheryl doesn’t feel Bobby can be trusted one iota living on his own, in D.C., even part-time, with so many attractive women and Kennedy groupies around, as he gets settled in his powerful new position,’ one insider said. 

‘So she’s given him a strict ultimatum – move me or else.’

Hines’s rep did not return DailyMail.com’s request for comment. 

Cheryl has been a part of the Hollywood celebrity scene for years and the couple shares a $6million estate in the exclusive Brentwood section of LA.

But sources said: ‘Cheryl’s willing to sacrifice all that glamorous lifestyle to become a political wife, move to D.C. forthwith, and live in trendy Georgetown, so she can keep a close watch on Bobby.’ 

Sheryl Lee Ralph 

Sheryl Lee Ralph tied the knot with Democrat Senator Hughes in 2005 after two years of dating. 

The actress and her husband don’t live under the same roof and don’t see the revelation as a big deal. 

Asked why he thought the news caused a stir, Hughes told Entertainment Tonight: ‘I don’t know why, we’ve been commuting ever since the beginning and it has worked for us so it’s cool!’ 

The Abbott Elementary star previously admitted that because of logistics regarding both of their careers they end up seeing each other just once every two weeks –  but insisted that because they have been together for so long now, the setup has ‘worked’ for them despite causing controversy amongst fans.

She said: ‘Vincent and I have been married going on 19 years. We’ve been together 21 years. Abbott Elementary is shot in Los Angeles. 

‘My husband, as a senator, is always in his Capitol, so I don’t know what magic people think we’re gonna do. 

‘We see each other on the average of every two weeks. And everybody who questions that I say, guess what? We’re still married. It works for us and we’re happy, so…’