Tim Mathieson | |
---|---|
![]() Mathieson with Julia Gillard in 2013 | |
Partner of the Prime Minister of Australia | |
In role 24 June 2010 – 27 June 2013 | |
Preceded by | Thérèse Rein |
Succeeded by | Thérèse Rein |
Personal details | |
Born | Timothy Raymond Mathieson 1957 (age 66–67) Shepparton, Victoria, Australia |
Spouse |
Diane Stark
(m. 1987; div. 2003) |
Domestic partner(s) | Julia Gillard (2006–2021) |
Children | 3 |
Education | Shepparton High School[1] |
Occupation | Hairdresser |
Timothy Raymond Mathieson (born 1957) is an Australian hairdresser and the former domestic partner of Julia Gillard, the Prime Minister of Australia from 2010-2013.[1] Mathieson entered the public spotlight when they partnered in 2006 while Gillard was deputy leader of the Australian Labor Party.[2][3] His relationship with Gillard ended in 2021.[4]
Mathieson was born and raised in Shepparton, Victoria. After a hairdressing apprenticeship in suburban Melbourne, he first operated a Shepparton hair salon, then another on the Gold Coast, Queensland.[5] For much of the 1990s, Mathieson lived and worked in San Francisco in the United States.[6]
Mathieson returned to Australia in 2004, worked for one year as a hairdresser at Heading Out salon in Melbourne, where he met long-standing salon client, politician Julia Gillard. They began dating in March 2006.[1] With financial support from his father and brother, Mathieson established Tim Mathieson Hair in Shepparton but moved back to Melbourne later in 2006[7] as a sales representative for a hair products company.[6] From January to March 2010, Mathieson focused on the sale of high-rise apartments in Melbourne to international buyers on behalf of a local real estate agency.[3][8]
Once Gillard became prime minister in June 2010, Mathieson supported her by assuming an unpaid behind-the-scenes role.[9]
In November 2008, Minister for Health and Ageing Nicola Roxon appointed Mathieson as one of the government's unpaid men's health ambassadors.[2] He later became an ambassador for Kidney Health Australia,[10] a patron of the Australian Men's Shed Association[11] and involved with the Indigenous Diabetes Association in Alice Springs[3] and Beyond Blue mental health group.[5] In December 2010, Mathieson was appointed patron of the National Portrait Gallery.[12]
In January 2013, Mathieson attracted media attention for a joke he made while advocating for prostate examinations, advising men to seek out "a small Asian female doctor" when receiving a rectal prostate exam. After commentators considered his remark inappropriate and in poor taste, he apologised.[13]
While in his late teens during the 1970s, Mathieson fathered a daughter with his girlfriend Pam Child.[14][15] In 1987, Mathieson married Diane Stark; they had a son and a daughter together[16] and divorced in 2003.[17] In March 2006, Mathieson started dating Julia Gillard.[1] When asked in 2010 about formal marriage to Gillard, he said that they had not discussed it at that stage.[18] Mathieson's relationship with Gillard ended in 2021.[19]
In July 2023, Mathieson pleaded guilty to a charge of sexual assault after non-consensually sucking the nipple of a sleeping woman and "latching onto her breast when she tried to fend him off". in March 2022.[20][21] Mathieson was convicted in October 2023 and fined $7000.[22]