Alexandre Trudeau

Alexandre Trudeau presently stays in Montreal, in his father’s home with his wife Zoe Bedos, who works as a manager in a clothing store, and their three children.

Following the unexpected demise of his younger brother Michel in 1998, he started living with his father in the latter’s Montreal home and took good care of him till he died in 2008.

Alexandre Trudeau was born on 25th December 1973 in Ottawa to Margaret and Pierre Trudeau. His elder brother, Justin Trudeau was born exactly on the same day, two years earlier, and therefore both the siblings were termed “Christmas babies.” Alexandre’s mother had to grapple with postnatal depression following his birth.

Alexandre was nicknamed ‘Sacha’—which is actually the French version of the Russian abbreviation for Alexander. His father Pierre Trudeau, who was the Canadian Prime Minister at that time, was a confirmed Russophile, and in order to embody that affinity, he gave him the moniker Sacha.

He also had a brother, Michel, four years younger to him, who passed away at the young age of 25 after he drowned in the alpine lake, ‘Kokanee’ in British Columbia.

Margaret once expressed in an interview that all three of her sons, despite sharing some unique traits, had distinctive personalities of their own. Sacha was temperamental, strong-minded, and somewhat of a rebel while Justin was well-mannered, and Michel, the youngest of the three, had imbibed the qualities of his older brothers.

Soon after Alexandre’s parents officially divorced in April 1984, Margaret tied the knot with Fried Kemper, a real estate promoter, the same year. Pierre Trudeau, who retired as PM soon, relocated to Montreal, and took upon himself the responsibility of taking care of his children.

After Alexandre Trudeau completed his training in New Brunswick, he started working as Second Lieutenant but took a voluntary leave. He went all the way to Liberia in West Africa in 1998 to shoot a documentary, ‘Liberia: The Secret War’, his first.

In the very year Alexandre filmed his debut documentary, his younger brother Michel Trudeau was swept away by an avalanche plunging him into Lake Kokanee in British Columbia where he drowned. Despite a sweeping search, Michel’s body could not be salvaged from the lake.

Two years later, in 2000, Pierre Trudeau passed away, bringing both Alexandre and his elder brother Justin back into focus. Alexandre’s journalistic forays now received greater public attention as a result of his newfound and amplified public stature.

Alexandre Trudeau, after his father’s death, continued to work as a journalist, recording documentaries for television channels in Canada. He traveled to Iraq in 2003, as a high-profile journalist to cover the US invasion of the Middle East country, and produced a documentary titled ‘Embedded in Baghdad’.

In 2004, he recorded footages for a documentary, ‘The Fence’ that profiled Palestinian families settled in Palestine territories of Jenin, Israel, and Afula encircling West Bank. In the following year, Alexandre found himself siding with suspected terrorists put behind bars without trial by the government of Canada.

Alexandre Trudeau has revealed in his book, ‘Barbarian Lost: Travels in the New China’ that his persona had been shaped by keenly observing Pierre Trudeau, his father who valued privacy above all. Right from the time when he started making documentaries as a journalist, he preferred staying away from public gaze.

In his book, he has drawn up parallels with his father who too was bitten by the travel bug, making numerous trips to China and chronicling his observations. His elder brother Justin, after he became Canada’s PM, dashed to China in his official capacity.

Alexandre Trudeau has maintained that after becoming an adult, he intentionally and relentlessly tried to distance himself from the limelight and glare of publicity that came naturally with his illustrious surname.

He exudes an infectious charm and always has in store an insatiable energy to carry on conversations which he starts at the drop of a hat with anybody he feels drawn towards. Despite being a man of average built, he has an uncanny resilience to survive even in the toughest of conditions.

He has confessed to not being a hardened journalist like most other successful correspondents or reporters, even though he has produced some astonishingly poignant documentaries. He is of the opinion that he is more of a peregrinator than a documentarian or chronicler.