Sophie Grégoire Trudeau says keeping her eating disorder a secret only made things worse: 'I was so ashamed ... I had to purge it out'
Sophie Grégoire Trudeau isn't afraid to open up about the struggles she's faced in life. The 49-year-old estranged wife of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently reflected on keeping her eating disorder a secret for years — and how opening up was "such a relief."
The Montreal-native mental health advocate spoke at SHE Media CO-Lab at SXSW in Austin, Texas, on March 8, alongside other well-known figures like actress Naomi Watts, comedian Chelsea Handler and journalist Katie Couric. Grégoire Trudeau explained that sharing her health journey was also "the best thing I ever did," admitting she didn't talk right away.
"I was so ashamed. Why me? What the heck? I think that keeping it in constricted my throat, and therefore I had to purge it out," she shared, according to Flow Space.
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The retired TV host added she was only able to reflect on her health after a moment of self-awareness: "I saw myself and I said, 'Enough. That's enough.'" However, Grégoire Trudeau noted being open about her experience felt risky, especially because she was new in the broadcast world.
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"I thought, 'I'm never going to get contracts again. People are just going to think of me as the lady who barfs,'" she recalled, adding the response she received "changed my life" and "the way I related to other human beings."
For other people going through similar challenges, Grégoire Trudeau urged that most people have positive intentions: "Most human beings are good, and we want to help each other out. When I told my story, maybe some people didn't receive it well — but most did."
It's not the first time the Closer Together author has gotten candid over the bulimia she experienced in her late teens and early 20s. Last spring, she shared similar sentiments about the eating disorder while speaking to former CTV News host Lisa LaFlamme during a fundraiser event in Kitchener-Waterloo.
"I was ashamed and guilty," she said last May. "I remember being like, 'What the heck am I suffering from?' And every time I was telling myself, 'This is the last time. Why are you doing this to yourself?'"
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Grégoire Trudeau shared in 2017 that she was only able to get onto the path of recovery when she started sharing her story, where she saw support from her family and friends. "The moment I started sharing my story, obviously I had begun on my road to recovery," she said during an Eating Disorder Awareness Week event that year.
In April 2024, Grégoire Trudeau spoke to Yahoo Canada about her story, explaining that eating disorders and anxiety were only the "tip of the iceberg." She recalled how her mother was hyper-focused on physical appearance, and that bled into how she learned to perceive herself.
"I got lots of positive reinforcement when I kept my weight on the low side," she recalled. "So I internalized that concept and the pressure that accompanied it. I hid from the outside world, and bathrooms became a twisted safe haven."
Eventually, she recalled one night during her second year of junior college where she was shaken up by purging for too long and too hard. She called for her mother and her parents soon got her help by seeing a therapist at Montreal's Sainte-Justine Hospital.
"I started wanting to change my situation. I'm a quick learner," she shared with a laugh. "And I think that I was kind of curious and adventurous enough to go inside."
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