John Dennis Profumo CBE (/prəˈfjuːmoʊ/ prə-FEW-moh; 30 January 1915 – 9 March 2006) was a British politician whose career ended in 1963 after a sexual relationship with the 19-year-old model Christine Keeler in 1961.

In November 1947, Acting Colonel Profumo was awarded the Bronze Star Medal by the United States "in recognition of distinguished services in the cause of the Allies".

[9] In 1940, while still serving in the Army, Profumo was elected to the House of Commons as a Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Kettering in Northamptonshire at a by-election on 3 March.

[13] Profumo was a well-connected politician with a good war record and, despite Margesson's aforementioned outburst, was highly regarded in the Conservative Party.

[15] In July 1961, at a party at Cliveden, home of Viscount Astor, John Profumo met Christine Keeler, a 19-year-old model with whom he began a sexual relationship.

Since Keeler had also had sexual relations with Yevgeny Ivanov, the senior naval attaché at the Soviet Embassy, the matter took on a national-security dimension.

But the British tradition of respecting the private lives of British politicians, for fear of libel actions, was maintained until March 1963, when the Labour MP George Wigg, claiming to be motivated by the national-security aspects of the case, and taking advantage of Parliamentary privilege, which gave him immunity from any possible legal action, referred in the House of Commons to the rumours linking Profumo with Keeler.

Profumo then made a personal statement in which he admitted he knew Keeler but denied there was any "impropriety" in their relationship and threatened to sue if newspapers asserted otherwise.

On 5 June 1963, Profumo was forced to admit that he had lied to the House in March when he denied an affair with Keeler, which at that time was an unforgivable offence in British politics.

Profumo resigned from office and from the Privy Council, and applied for and was appointed to the role of steward of the Chiltern Hundreds to give up his Commons seat.

[19][21][22] Profumo was portrayed by Daniel Flynn[23] in Andrew Lloyd Webber's stage musical Stephen Ward, which opened at the Aldwych Theatre on 19 December 2013.

He was portrayed by Ben Miles[24] in the 2019/2020 BBC drama The Trial of Christine Keeler and by Tim Steed[25] in the Netflix series The Crown, where the Profumo Affair is part of the plot for season 2, episode 10 – "Mystery Man".