Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has apologized and said he is ‘pissed off’ at himself after a photo emerged showing him wearing brownface to a party 18 years ago when he was a private school teacher.
The photo, published by TIME magazine today, shows Trudeau wearing brown makeup on his face, neck and hands while wearing a turban and robe at a party in 2001.
Trudeau admitted to wearing the racist costume when he attended an ‘Arabian Nights’ themed gala at West Point Grey Academy – the private school in Vancouver where he was teaching at the time.
The photograph appears in the 2000-2001 yearbook of West Point Grey Academy, a private day school where Trudeau was a teacher.
The emergence of the photo comes just one week after Trudeau launched his campaign and could undermine his chances for re-election with less than five weeks to go before Canada’s election.
In a press conference held on his campaign plane on Wednesday night, Trudeau acknowledged that the photo was racist and said he should have known better.
‘I attended an end of year gala where the theme was Arabian nights. I dressed up in an Aladdin costume and put makeup on,’ Trudeau said.
‘I shouldn’t have done that. I should have known better, but I didn’t, and I’m really sorry.
‘I’m p***ed off at myself, I’m disappointed in myself.’
He also admitted to wearing black makeup in high school to perform as African-American singer Harry Belafonte.
Trudeau said it was a racist act but he didn’t realize it at the time and that he knows better now.
He asked Canadians to forgive him and said he would continue to fight intolerance and discrimination.
Trudeau repeatedly said he would take responsibility for his mistakes in the past but refused to say why he hadn’t spoken about the existence of the racist photo sooner.
He worked at the private school before entering politics and at the same time his father Pierre Trudeau was Canada’s Prime Minister.
Trudeau taught French, among other classes, when he was a teacher at the private school where tuition is about $23,000 a year.
He left his teaching position there after spring in 2001.
The photo emerged publicly for the first time on Wednesday after a tip from a Vancouver businessman Michael Adamson who was said to be part of the West Point Grey Academy community.
Adamson didn’t attend the party but came across the photo in the yearbook in July and believed it should be made public.
The photo emerged a month before Canada’s general election scheduled for October 21.
Trudeau, who has been in power since 2015, is facing a tough re-election battle against the main opposition Conservatives led by Andrew Scheer.
He has been admired by liberals around the world for his progressive policies in the Trump era, with Canada accepting more refugees than the United States.
His Liberal government has also strongly advocated free trade.
Trudeau has come under fire of late following one of the biggest scandals in Canadian political history, which arose when Trudeau’s former attorney general said he improperly pressured her to halt the criminal prosecution of a company in Quebec.
Trudeau has said he was standing up for jobs.