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As so many occurrences now do, it unfolded on a boat. The prior weekend, the Daily Mail posted several photos depicting the American singer Katy Perry locking lips on the deck of her vessel, the Caravelle, with her presumed new beau, the former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Perry, who earlier in the year ended her relationship with her longtime partner, the actor Orlando Bloom, and father to her daughter, donned a dark, single-piece swimsuit, her hair casually arranged in a knot. Trudeau, having split from his spouse and the mother to his three offspring, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, during 2023, was without a shirt and wearing jeans, in a fashion akin to R.F.K., Jr.’s athletic attire. As reported, the somewhat unclear pictures were snapped off the coast of Santa Barbara by a spectator aboard a neighboring whale-watching tour boat and gave what seemed like conclusive evidence of a love affair previously confined to whispers, prompted by the pair’s July dinner date at a Montreal eatery, which was soon followed by Trudeau’s appearance at a performance by Perry.
Affectionate yacht encounters and the media outlets that relish covering them are nothing groundbreaking: back in the sixties, there were Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor relaxing on their yacht, Kalizma, off the Sardinian coast; the seventies showcased Jacqueline Kennedy and Aristotle Onassis voyaging on the Greek islands aboard the superyacht Christina; and, in the early 2000s, there was Jennifer Lopez’s playful music video for her song “Jenny from the Block,” starring her then fiancé, Ben Affleck, being photographed by the paparazzi on a yacht deck while applying sunscreen to his sweetheart’s bikini-clad rear. (In literature, the yacht’s history as a locus for romantic conspiracy and speculation extends even further back, to Edith Wharton’s 1905 novel “The House of Mirth,” where the beautiful but unfortunate Lily Bart cruises the Mediterranean with the scheming Bertha Dorset and her deceived spouse, George.)
However, the popularity of the celebs-on-a-yacht category has lately scaled remarkable heights. Subsequent to their reconciliation in 2021, Affleck and Lopez were seen fundamentally recreating the “Jenny from the Block” sunblock scene on a superyacht near Saint-Tropez, an event which signaled just the beginning of what has since snowballed into something much bigger. Within 2025 alone, we’ve witnessed, amongst numerous instances, Leonardo DiCaprio and Vittoria Ceretti unwinding waterside within sight of Formentera; Dua Lipa and Callum Turner exhibiting public displays of affection near the Amalfi Coast; and Nina Dobrev and Zac Efron “spurring romance rumors,” as TMZ put it, in Sardinian waters. In my opinion, this glut has been somewhat fueled by the rise of the ultimate proponents of yachting and romance: Jeff Bezos and his partner, Lauren Sánchez. For the last couple of years, it’s nearly felt as though one couldn’t browse social media without encountering fresh images of the scantily dressed pair cavorting on the Amazon magnate’s five-hundred-million-dollar megayacht, Koru. Spankings, photo ops, and foam parties: it all happened on the ship.
Katy Perry maintains a friendship with Bezos and Sánchez and has previously been on Koru. Back in April, she also boarded another vessel linked to the couple, when she joined Sánchez and a quartet of other women aboard Bezos’s Blue Origin space-tourism rocket for a concise eleven-minute suborbital flight. Branded as a female-empowerment venture, “Taking Up Space,” Perry lightheartedly voiced her ambition to “put the ass in astronaut.” (“Space will finally be glamorous,” she envisioned.) However, the outing garnered widespread disapproval (the Guardian declared it signaled “the utter downfall of American feminism”)—a reaction trailing prior public Perry shortcomings. In the past year, she unveiled the track “Woman’s World,” which endured considerable ridicule for its outdated girlboss message—the song, Pitchfork mentioned, sounds as though “its writer needed to have feminism explained to her via the topmost results of the first Google page”—and that reached a peak of No. 63 on the Billboard charts. (None of the additional songs from her latest album, “143,” achieved any significant chart success.) Although her current Lifetimes world tour has reportedly been profitable, Perry undeniably isn’t the culturally significant, multi-platinum artist she once was during her initial career days.
Her new love interest, for his part, has also been undergoing alterations. Trudeau, whose esteem as P.M. waned amidst a growing budget shortfall and import tax warnings from Donald Trump, stepped down in January as head of the Canadian Liberal Party—a position he’d retained since 2013. He relinquished his position as Prime Minister in March, after a decade in command. Abruptly clear of political duty, he was a private citizen, something he hadn’t experienced in quite some time. Regardless of whether he’s in public office, though, Trudeau has continuously been a certain type: a natural celebrity. With his captivating, movie-star appearance—towering, broad-shouldered, with azure eyes and tousled hair—Trudeau maintains a Prince Valiant presence whether in power or not. (A prevalent meme from 2017 labeled him “Mr. Steal Yo Girl,” in recognition of the infatuated responses he apparently evoked in Ivanka Trump, the Duchess of Cambridge, the actress Emma Watson, and even President Trump.)
As the progeny of Pierre Trudeau, Canada’s Prime Minister between 1968 and 1979, and, once more, from 1980 to 1984, Justin Trudeau can also be described as a political nepo baby. His intrinsic charisma isn’t simply a consequence of Pierre’s one-time post, though, but additionally because both his father and his mother, Margaret Trudeau, were themselves authentic celebrities who shone past the political sphere. This was evident, for example, within their amorous pursuits: Pierre, whose entrance into Canadian politics triggered a fanlike craze dubbed Trudeaumania, dated Barbra Streisand in the late sixties; and following her separation from the much older Pierre, Margaret went on to have romantic links with Jack Nicholson, Ryan O’Neal, and, perhaps most infamously, the Rolling Stones’ Ronnie Wood. (Within her 2010 memoir, “Changing My Mind,” where she openly detailed her struggle with bipolar disorder, Margaret recalled of that time, “I turned into a cover girl, a celebrity in a period preceding celebrity culture, famous solely for my scandalous behavior.”)
Trudeau’s glittering heritage may have set him up for how a politician’s life looks more and more like once they’re out of office. Figures akin to President Barack Obama, for example, have executed this role impeccably. After departing from the White House back in 2017, Obama has put effort into creating the Obama Presidential Center within Chicago; he’s also accomplished certain campaigning for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris throughout their respective campaigns; however, he has primarily, as USA Today stated not long ago, persisted “to keep his vision set on prospects within media and entertainment.” He and his wife, Michelle, possess an understanding with Netflix via the duo’s Higher Ground production firm; he’s inked a deal—like Harris and Biden—along with the talent company C.A.A.; and he’s emerged as a prominent figure within pop culture, providing music, book, and film selection lists to his devotees across social media, plus guesting on podcasts. (He participated in the final episode of Marc Maron’s “WTF” podcast this past Monday.) He’s additionally mingled, frequently while on vacation, sometimes on superyachts, alongside the renowned and exceedingly affluent: Richard Branson, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Hanks, Oprah, Steven Spielberg. His infiltration of Hollywood has verified itself so thorough as to render him the target of unsubstantiated romantic conjecture: as a wild rumor claimed, Obama was engaged in an affair alongside the actress Jennifer Aniston. (Aniston rejected the affair, and the Obamas stated via podcast that they were still together.)
It’s increasingly apparent that we’re no longer residing within the era of the late Jimmy Carter, characterized by his post-Presidency devotion to community service. Instead, we’re currently navigating a realm of levelled-out celebrity, spread out in the blinding sunlight. This is, at minimum, partly the result of existing within Trump’s America: the incumbent President has been known for the duration of his existence in the spotlight most notably as an extremely rich and intensely famous individual, and seeing as empires are crumbling, what alternative remains besides emulating his approach? One might be a reality personality akin to a Kardashian or a Jenner, or a billionaire like Bezos; one could be an actor similar to DiCaprio or a media kingpin akin to Oprah. One may even be a pop singer like Perry or a politician like Trudeau. On the yacht, as well as within the camera’s view, all are equivalent, and all are having their moment, simply endeavoring to navigate through another day. ♦
Sourse: newyorker.com
