Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s longtime family friendship with the Aga Khan may have begun with his mother during an infamous trip to New York that caused an uproar at home 40 years ago.
The Aga Khan’s half-sister, Princess Yasmin Aga Khan, is a jet-setting philanthropist who, in 1977, featured prominently in the political mini-drama involving the Trudeaus, a New York City apartment, a Russian ballet dancer and an iconic photograph of a princess and a prime minister’s wife, strolling arm-in-arm along Madison Avenue.
Justin Trudeau’s family getaway by private helicopter to the Aga Khan’s 349-acre private island in the Bahamas over the Christmas holidays is now under investigation by Mary Dawson, the conflict of interest and ethics commissioner. The billionaire religious leader’s foundation has received hundreds of millions of dollars in Canadian foreign aid money and is a registered lobbyist with the government.
In his explanation for the holiday, the prime minister said the Aga Khan was a family friend whom he has known since he was a “toddler.” Justin Trudeau was five-years-old when his mother, Margaret, a self-described free-spirit decades younger than her husband, then prime minister Pierre Trudeau, spent their sixth wedding anniversary partying with the Rolling Stones at a Toronto nightclub. She then boarded a plane for New York — where the Stones were headed next — and became the focus of intense gossip. (Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood addressed the Trudeau-fling-rumours in his 2007 memoir, Ronnie, saying of Margaret: “We had a wonderful time and her husband’s name never came up.”)
Trudeau later described her New York escape as her “ultimate freedom trip.” But her freedom had its limits. Photographers caught Margaret on Madison Avenue, in a fur coat, smiling broadly and strolling arm-in-arm with an equally glamorous-looking Princess Yasmin Aga Khan. The princess was the daughter of actress Rita Hayworth and Prince Aly Khan, a royal who died in a fiery motor crash in France in 1960.
Robin Leach, the celebrity columnist, revealed Trudeau’s New York hideaway as Princess Yasmin’s seven-room apartment in a March 28, 1977 article for People magazine. Trudeau spoke at length, providing several sensational quotes, including a description of her 58-year-old husband as having “the body of a 25-year-old,” and her preference for wearing garter-belts and stockings.
Her time with the princess featured a trip to the ballet to watch Mikhail Baryshnikov, and a trip to the toy store, presumably to buy gifts for Justin and his two younger brothers, Sacha and Michel. Trudeau told Leach that she wanted to move to New York, part-time, to begin an apprenticeship with the famous photographer Richard Avedon. She was 28 and weary of being viewed as a prime minister’s wife and nothing more.
“I pray that people will not judge Pierre by my wanting to be a woman,” she told Leach. “I am a free spirit that must survive in a free world. I am not a weirdo, a wacko or an eccentric for wanting to do good, honest work on a day-to-day basis.
“I just want to find my individuality. I am tired of being public property.”
Trudeau eventually flew home to Ottawa. The prime minister’s limousine met her at the airport. The couple divorced in 1984. Margaret Trudeau was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder and is now a well-known author and mental health advocate living in Ottawa.
Attempts to reach her for comment were unsuccessful Monday.
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