A date? Just dinner? Doesn't matter. Justin Trudeau, Katy Perry buzz is good for their embattled brands

The rumour mill is in overdrive this week as former prime minister Justin Trudeau was spotted dining out with pop star Katy Perry in Montreal.

TMZ photos and video of Perry and Trudeau talking to each other Monday night at a table for two at Le Violon, a fine-dining establishment run by celebrity chef Danny Smiles.

Perry, who recently split from actor Orlando Bloom, joined Trudeau ahead of bringing her Lifetimes concert tour to Montreal's Bell Centre Wednesday night. She also played in Ottawa on Tuesday and will head to Quebec City on Friday.

Trudeau, who separated from ex-wife Sophie Grégoire Trudeau in 2023, resigned as prime minister earlier this year.

The night out this week sparked gossip that the pair may have been on a date, even though Samantha Jin, a communications consultant for Le Violon, told The Canadian Press there was no indication of any sort of romance in the air.

But when it comes to the buzz it's generating, the nature of their night out may not really matter. Both Trudeau and Perry have had a fair bit of bad press in recent years and public relations experts say their appearance together gives each a chance to change the conversation.

"I thought that for both of them, this was actually a really great brand and reputational move," said Natasha Koifman, president of NKPR, a public relations agency in Toronto.

Koifman says that while she interpreted their dinner as more intimate than others suggest, she has little doubt they wanted to be seen, as there were likely more private options than a table by the window.

"I think that that was actually probably a strategic move," she told CBC News. "I think it elevates both of their brands, for very different reasons, to actually be seen together."

2025 wasn't the most favourable year for either Trudeau or Perry.

Trudeau, 53, saw the writing on the wall for his political future, amid plunging poll numbers and internal Liberal Party strife, and announced his resignation in January, after nearly a decade in office.

Perry, 40, has been battling headlines about her Lifetimes tour not selling out. Her space flight on Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin rocket in April, along an all-female celebrity team of space travellers was panned to the point that The Daily Beast writer Kevin Fallon raised the question: "Why does everyone hate Katy Perry so much?"

Perry has come off as "a bit tone-deaf" and "self-indulgent" in interviews, Koifman says, and it was "just one bad move after another" that led to the pile-on from detractors.

Eric Schiffer, CEO of Reputation Management Consultants in Beverly Hills, Calif., tends to agree, saying Perry "put herself in a position where she threatened career extinction."

But he also believes Trudeau has a lot to gain from the talk about the outing, given he left office at a political low point.

"You have these two individual brands that are in, in a way, outcasts that are coming together and ... could help to rebuild each other," he said.

The meet-up was somewhat unexpected, says Sharan Kaur, a principal at public relations and crisis management firm Navigator, but there's likely added interest because it's the first big "speculation of anything" Trudeau has had, post-politics and post-marriage.

She's not surmising that it was anything other than just two people who wanted to have dinner together and says she doesn't actually think it's anyone's business.

But it's not out of the ordinary for a political figure like Trudeau to pal around with celebrities, said Kaur, who also worked as deputy chief of staff for Trudeau's former finance minister Bill Morneau.

She says he's always had his own "celebrity vibe to him" both domestically and internationally, especially considering his high-profile family — with his twice-prime-minister father Pierre Elliott Trudeau and mother Margaret Trudeau; both had their own relationships with celebrities after their split in 1977.

But Kaur wonders if Trudeau may be trying to lean into that celebrity factor a bit more, now that he's no longer holding office.

While she agrees that the rendez-vous is good press, she wonders if it might be less helpful to Trudeau's reputation if he is trying to be seen as "the serious guy" in his post-political life.

"I would have probably avoided hanging out with celebrities in public spaces," she said, rather than feeding into pundits' narratives "that he kind of views himself as a celebrity."

WATCH | Trudeau, wife of 18 years Sophie Grégoire Trudeau separate in 2023:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, have posted statements online saying they are separating after 18 years of marriage.