Justin Trudeau Is Fidel Castro's Son Theory

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About

Justin Trudeau Is Fidel Castro's Son is a conspiracy theory based on the assumption that Canadian Prime Minster Justin Trudeau's mother Margaret Trudeau had a love affair with Cuban leader Fidel Castro in 1971, with Castro being Justin Trudeau's biological father as a result. The theory rests on assertions that the Trudeaus and Castro met in 1971, that Margaret had love affairs with other men and that there's a physical resemblance between Justin and Castro. The theory was created by a 4chan user in 2016 and has reemerged multiple times online since.

Origin

On November 26th, 2016, following the news of Cuban revolutionary and former President Fidel Castro's death, the Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau released^[1] a statement praising Castro as a "legendary revolutionary and orator" and noting that it was "a real honor" to have met him during a visit to Cuba (shown below).

Following the release of the statement, critics of Castro's regime condemned Trudeau for praising the deceased leader without mentioning his human rights record.^[2]

On November 27th, 2016, an anonymous 4chan user made two threads in the /pol/^[3]^[4] board titled "Fidel Castro is Justin Trudeau's Father!" In the threads (first thread shown below), the original poster and other users developed and discussed a theory that Justin Trudeau is an illegitimate son of Margaret Trudeau and Fidel Castro, making this assumption based on Margaret admitting to having affairs during her marriage in her memoir, the Trudeaus being close to Castro, whom Pierre Trudeau once described as "a close friend and an extraordinary figure" and a perceived physical resemblance between Justin Trudeau and Castro.

Pierre and Margaret were fans, and even friends of Fidel Castro. I am positive that Justin Trudeau's real father is, in fact, Fidel Castro. […] Want more proof? Look at Trudeau right now compared to a young Fidel Castro. Their facial structure is similar, the noses are almost the same, compared with Pierre Trudeau it is night and day.

Later on November 27th, 2016, Redditor George_Rockwell made a thread about the theory in the /r/The_Donald^[5] subreddit, where it got over 390 upvotes in one month.

Spread

On November 30th, 2016, fact-checking website Snopes issued an article about the theory,^[6] rating it as "false" due to the recently married Trudeaus not making any official visiting Cuba until 1976 and the premise that they did in 1970 (12 months before Justin Trudeau's birth) based on a misreading of a newspaper article, which mentioned the first time Fidel Castro and Justin Trudeau's father communicated, not met, and it being extremely unlikely for 22-year-old Margaret Trudeau to secretly escape to Cuba one month after her wedding shortly after moving in with her husband, the period when Justin Trudeau was conceived.

The conspiracy theory briefly went viral in late 2016 on social media but did not see significant further spread until the early 2020s. On February 26th, 2021, X^[7] user @es_aion posted several images connected to the theory, writing, "I believe that Castro is Trudeau's father." The post (shown below) garnered over 20,000 reposts and 112,000 likes in three years.

The theory again saw a surge in online virality during the Canadian Freedom Convoy anti-vaccine protest, with memes referencing it being circulated on imageboards and social media (example^[8] shown below).

The theory was used by various opponents and critics of Justin Trudeau, including American commentator Candace Owens, who has referenced Trudeau as "Justin Castro" and "Justin Castro Trudeau."^[9]

In August 2024, former U.S. President Donald Trump repeated the theory when talking about the Canadian Prime Minster during his guest appearance on Adin Ross' Kick stream (video shown below).^[10]