But Trudeau is not particularly unlucky: There’s a long history of people chucking things at politicians in public to draw attention to their causes, or as an act of dissent.
Here are some of the most memorable tosses:
The milkshake siege of Nigel Farage’s bus
British Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage was encircled on his campaign bus in 2019 by a few people clad in black and holding milkshakes. This was just days after he was “milkshaked” by a 32-year-old man who doused the British politician with a banana-and-salted-caramel milkshake from Five Guys. The man was later charged with common assault.
The sweet drink had turned into a form of protest across the country. A series of similar milkshake attacks hit divisive candidates for European Parliament elections at the time.
Egg on the head in Australia
A teenager in Australia earned the moniker of “egg boy” in 2019 for cracking an egg on the head of a right-wing lawmaker after the Christchurch mosque attack in New Zealand.
In a video that went viral, the shell smashed and yolk oozed down the back of Fraser Anning, who had just blamed Muslims for the attack against them that killed at least 50 people. The senator then punched the 17-year-old in the face. William Connolly, a.k.a. “egg boy,” later warned that the attention on him distracted from “the real victims suffering.”
In another political egging in Australia that same year, a woman who said she was protesting the treatment of asylum seekers hit Prime Minister Scott Morrison on the head with an egg. That one failed to crack.
The ‘ByeBye Bush’ shoe that got a statue
This projectile gathered a cult following: The lace-up shoe that made former Republican President Bush famously duck inspired a giant bronze statue. The Iraqi journalist who spent nine months in prison for hurling his oxfords at a U.S. commander in chief in 2008 went on to run for parliament.
It marked the last trip by then-president Bush to Baghdad before he left office, nearly six years after the United States invaded Iraq in search of weapons of mass destruction that weren’t there. His attempts to tout the successes of the war did not go over well. A shoe came flying at him from the back of the news conference, then came another.
“This is a goodbye kiss, you dog!” the owner of the size 10s, Muntadhar al-Zaidi, yelled in Arabic before guards tackled him in his socks.
“This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq!” The show toss — which spawned analysis after another about the meaning of shoe throwing — prompted a footwear model in its honor called the “ByeBye Bush.”
Donald Trump sees red (tomatoes)
A 28-year-old man was eventually arrested for lobbing not one but two tomatoes at then-presidential candidate Donald Trump at a rally in 2016 — both of which missed.
Later, in Iowa, Trump asked his supporters to “knock the crap out of” any more protesters “getting ready to throw a tomato” at him. “I will pay for the legal fees,” he promised.
Fans reportedly created a GoFundMe page to help with the tomato lobber’s legal expenses.
Nicolas Sarkozy’s crisis of crust
When former French president Nicolas Sarkozy ran for office in 2007, he was pied in the face — or as the French would call it, “entarté.”
Incidents of lèse-majesté by pastry are common in the country. In 2006, French socialist politician Ségolène Royal was hit with a strawberry and cream pie as she exited a train station in France’s southwest. The 22-year-old student who did it later told a judge it was a “symbolic and humorous act.”
French President Emmanuel Macron was recently the victim of a less savory form of protest when a man slapped him in the face as he shook hands in a crowd at a public event.
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