Meet Justin Trudeau’s Model Son

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A few weeks ago, Justin Trudeau’s 18-year-old son Xav turned heads in a viral Raimundo Langlois campaign that announced him as a model to watch. This of course caught the eye of Eileen Cartter, GQ’s style editor and premiere chronicler of celebrity model sons, who talked to him about making music (he’s also a pop-R&B singer) and modeling denim for a Q&A. “Building a new name for myself and being my own man was a super important thing because people knew me as Trudeau’s kid, and that’s slowly changing,” Trudeau said. —Raymond Ang, director of editorial operations

Justin Trudeau’s Son Xav Is Modeling Gen-Z Denim and Making Music

By Eileen Cartter

There are many kinds of model sons. Some are the sons of rockstars, of Oscar-winning actors, of world-famous athletes. Some are even the sons of other models. Much rarer are the model sons of politicians, and rarer still are model scions of a Canadian political dynasty. Cue Xavier “Xav” Trudeau, the 18-year-old son of former Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, who himself is the son of former Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau. Currently based in Montreal with his sights set on Los Angeles, Xav is forging his own lane in a couple of ways: as a model (he recently appeared in an eyebrow-raising campaign for the buzzy clothing brand Raimundo Langlois) and as a pop-R&B musician (he recently performed his “funnest” show yet among the crowds at the Ottawa Shawarma Fest).

“Building a new name for myself and being my own man was a super important thing because people knew me as Trudeau’s kid, and that’s slowly changing. I want to be known as Xav,” he tells me by Zoom this week, speaking post-Shawarma Fest from Ottawa. (He pronounces his name as “Zav,” with a Canadian zed.) He never thought politics would be his path, he says, “but I did feel pressured. I think that’s why I wanted to do something totally different and obviously change people’s lives, but in my own way.”

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