Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard has confirmed she broke up with longtime boyfriend Tim Mathieson a year ago.

Ms Gillard was Australia’s first, and still only, female Prime Minister, and although they were unmarried, Mr Mathieson became known as ‘First Bloke’ – a play on the American tradition of calling a president’s wife the “First Lady”.

Mr. Mathieson had not been seen with Ms. Gillard in some time and had not even lived in the same town for over a year.

Next, Premier Julia Gillard (right) and Tim Mathieson (left) attend the AFL Round of 10 match between the Geelong Cats and the Gold Coast Suns at Simonds Stadium on June 1, 2013

The former prime minister is known for her private life and has mostly avoided public comment since Kevin Rudd ousted her as Labor leader and prime minister on June 27, 2013.

Ms Gillard did the same with Mr Rudd three years earlier and then formed a full minority government after the 2010 federal election.

Ms Gillard, who grew up in Adelaide, confirmed her hometown Sunday mail that she and Mr Mathieson split more than a year ago after 15 years together.

Ms Gillard this month caught Covid in London, which she said was ‘debilitating’, but she is ‘on the road to recovery’.

She is chair of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s College London and divides her time between there and Adelaide.

Just three weeks ago it emerged that his former home in Melbourne was up for sale, still with the distinctive red bollards outside to prevent a vehicular attack.

This distance between them while working in London has strained her relationship with the former hairdresser, who now lives in country Victoria.

Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard (pictured left) has announced she has split from Tim Mathieson (pictured right)

They met in 2004 at the Melbourne salon where Mr Mathieson worked, and Ms Gillard later wrote about their dating in My Story, her 2014 autobiography.

“Every four or five weeks, on a Sunday morning, I used to come in and go through the papers as my hair was done,” she wrote.

“Tim and I started talking about politics: at first he thought I was a state legislator. Later, we passed each other on a tram and talked.

They only became an item in 2006, when they met for lunch during the “politically quiet period of the Melbourne Commonwealth Games”.

They lived together at The Lodge in Canberra when Ms Gillard became Prime Minister in 2010.

Mr Mathieson became patron of the National Portrait Gallery, a role previously held by Therese Rein, wife of Kevin Rudd, and Janette, wife of John Howard.

A Melbourne home once owned by former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard features a series of red bollards installed by federal police to prevent vehicle attacks

Their relationship became the subject of an ABC comedy series that parodied their home life, but the program was widely considered insulting, poorly received, and underwatched.

Ms Gillard was last in Adelaide over Christmas, where she had belatedly celebrated her 60th birthday.

Last weekend, she tweeted her congratulations to South Australia’s new Prime Minister, Peter Malinauskas, and the Labor Party for their emphatic victory in the state elections.

“Happy South Australians have endorsed the progressive policies needed to create a stronger and fairer future for our great state,” she said.