Katy Perry is a friend of Bezos and Sanchez and spent time with Cora herself. In April, she also boarded another vessel associated with the couple when she joined Sanchez and four other women on Bezos' Blue Origin space tourism rocket for an eleven-minute suborbital flight. It was hailed as a women's empowerment mission, “Occupying Space,” and Perry cheekily spoke of her desire to “kick astronaut ass.” (“Space will finally become glamorous,” she predicted.) The trip, however, was met with much ridicule ( Guardian said it signaled “the complete defeat of American feminism”)—a reaction that followed Perry's other public disappointments. Last year she released the single “Woman's World”, which was heavily criticized for its outdated girl-boss message. Pitchfork wrote, sounds like “its author had to ask her to explain feminism to the top half of Google's first page”—and which peaked at #63 in the rankings. Billboard graphics. (None of the other tracks on her latest album, “143While her ongoing Lifetimes World Tour is reportedly doing well commercially, Perry is clearly no longer the multi-platinum-selling culturally significant artist she was in the early days of her career.
Perry's new lover, in turn, has also undergone changes. Trudeau, whose popularity as prime minister is waning due to rising deficits and tariff threats from Donald Trump, resigned in January as leader of the Canadian Liberal Party, a position he has held since 2013. In March, after a decade in power, he resigned as prime minister. Having suddenly left political office, he became a private citizen for the first time in a long time. However, whether he was in public service or not, Trudeau was always one thing: a born celebrity. With his movie-star looks—tall, broad-shouldered, blue eyes and curly mane—Trudeau is a Prince Valiant-style figure, whether he's in power or not. (In 2017, popular meme called him “Mr. Steele, girl” for the sleepwalking responses he apparently elicited from Ivanka Trump, the Duchess of Cambridge, actress Emma Watson and even President Trump.)
As the son of Pierre Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada from 1968 to 1979 and again from 1980 to 1984, Justin Trudeau is also a political rebel. However, his innate glamor stems not only from Pierre's previous position, but also from the fact that both his father and his mother, Margaret Trudeau, were bona fide celebrities themselves who shone in the spotlight outside the political arena. This, for example, was reflected in their romantic lives: Pierre, whose emergence on the Canadian political scene sparked a fan frenzy called Trudeaumania, dated Barbra Streisand in the late sixties; and Margaret, having broken up with the much older Pierre, began romantic relationships with Jack Nicholson, Ryan O'Neal and, perhaps most famously, Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones. (In his 2010 memoirs: “Changing my mind“, in which she openly discusses her struggles with bipolar disorder, Margaret wrote of those years: “I became a cover girl, a celebrity in an era before celebrity culture, famous for nothing except my scandalous behavior.”)
Trudeau's illustrious pedigree might have prepared him for what life increasingly looks like for a politician out of office these days. This role, for example, was played by someone like President Barack Obama. Since leaving the White House in 2017, Obama has worked to create the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago; he also stymied Joe Biden and Kamala Harris during their campaigns; but he basically has like USA today wrote recently, continues to “keep an eye on opportunities in the media and entertainment industry.” He and his wife Michelle have a deal with Netflix through the couple's production company, Higher Ground; he signed – like Harris and Biden – with the talent agency CAA; and he has been a prominent figure in the pop culture sphere, offering lists of music, book and film recommendations to his social media followers, as well as participating in podcasts. (On Monday, he appeared on the final episode of Marc Maron's “WTF” podcast.) He's also friends, often on vacation, sometimes on superyachts, with the famous and super-rich: Richard Branson, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Hanks, Oprah, Steven Spielberg. His infiltration of Hollywood was so deep that it made him the subject of unsubstantiated romantic speculation: Obama was rumored to be having an affair with actress Jennifer Aniston. (Aniston denied the affair, and the Obamas said on the podcast that they were still together.)
It is becoming increasingly clear that we no longer live in the world of the late Jimmy Carter and his post-presidential devotion to public service. Rather, we are now in a world of aligned celebrities, spread out under a blinding sun. This is at least partly a result of life in Trump's America: the current president has been known throughout his public life as, above all, a very rich and very famous man, and when the empire collapses, what else is there to do but take over his leadership? You can be a reality TV star like Kardashian or Jenner, or a billionaire like Bezos; you can be an actor like DiCaprio or a media mogul like Oprah. You might even be a pop star like Perry or a politician like Trudeau. On the yacht and in the eyes of the camera, everyone is equal and everyone is having their moment, just trying to survive another day. ♦
