Hey, it’s me, Justin Trudeau. Look, I know that with all that’s going on in your country, just about everything I do seems like a slap in the face. I march in pride parades, I pen letters about why I’m raising my sons to be feminists, and all the while I’m doing it with this beautiful face. But, America, I’m not trying to rub it in. Really.
I am sorry about the time that Paul Ryan released publicity photos of himself wearing a backward cap and lifting weights, looking for all the world like he should’ve been named Chip. I am even sorrier that, on the same day, I released a photo of myself wearing a T-shirt that said “Ally” while spotting my daughter on the bench press.
What if I told you that my favorite musical artists are Bon Iver and the Spice Girls? But get this: I listen to Bon Iver ironically and the Spice Girls in earnest. Something about that hurts, doesn’t it? But I swear that pain is not intentional!
Speaking of music, while Trump paid, like, twenty million dollars for 3 Doors Down to play his Inauguration, I was cueing up my favorite playlist: the first track is “Fight Song,” and the final thirty-three are just clips from Malala’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech.
I know that your President brags about assaulting women and wears a tie down to his knees, but when I go on television wearing a mock turtleneck, explaining that I like to “expose my soft nape to let women know that they are safe in my presence,” I swear it’s not to rub anything in.
Was it disappointment or relief you felt when you heard there was also a secret “Access Hollywood” tape featuring me, Justin Trudeau? And how did that feeling change when you learned that the tape was just footage of me with my fellow-Canadian Ryan Gosling? We’re both wearing round tortoiseshell glasses and discussing our admiration for Roxane Gay, while a golden retriever snoozes peacefully at our feet. Billy Bush is there, and tries to say something, but Ryan silences him with a smile. You won’t see this on the tape, but, after Ryan and I finished our tea and draped ourselves in oversized cashmere sweaters, Billy Bush ran home crying and tried but failed to do a hundred pushups.
The day you found out that your boyfriend was cheating on you, there I was, on television, in a tastefully fitted navy suit. And then, when I sat down, the bottom of my pants hiked up a little to reveal that I was wearing brightly colored socks that said, “He doesn’t deserve you, Stacy.” How did I know? And how did I make an orange-and-purple sock work?
I get how excruciating it was when your President went on TV and claimed that he had the “best words,” and then I bought a commercial spot on CNN that was just thirty seconds of me staring directly at the camera and smiling with my eyes. I’ll admit: that one bordered on cruelty.
But how could I have known that, on the day that Trump nominated Betsy DeVos to be Secretary of Education, I would be shirtless in the woods, scratching “Vaccines save lives” into the dirt with a stick? For any Americans watching, it was, I imagine, a painful coincidence.
Oh, and about that time that I went ice skating wearing nothing but a rainbow Speedo, a pink pussyhat, and Ray-Bans, and performed an intricate series of loops and jumps, only after which it became clear that with my skates I had etched “No human is illegal” in the ice? That one was on purpose. Sorry.
