French first lady Brigitte Macron and her husband, President Emmanuel Macron, have filed a defamation lawsuit against MAGA-aligned commentator Candace Owens, following a year-long smear campaign in which Owens attempted to “prove” that Brigitte Macron is a transgender woman.
The legal action alleges that Owens’s repeated claims and conspiratorial content have caused “tremendous damage” to the Macrons, subjecting them to “global humiliation” and turning their personal lives into “fodder for profit-driven lies”.
“Owens has dissected their appearance, their marriage, their friends, their family, and their personal history — twisting it all into a grotesque narrative designed to inflame and degrade,” the lawsuit states, according to The Independent.
The couple accuses Owens of launching a relentless smear campaign driven by “provocation, not truth”, designed to inflame online audiences and stoke conspiracy theories.
Origins of the Smear Campaign
The defamation suit traces the start of the saga to June 2024, when Owens began amplifying a debunked theory that Brigitte Macron was in fact her own brother, Jean-Michel Trogneux, who had supposedly transitioned into a woman. Two women behind the original rumour were already found liable for defamation in a French court, with Trogneux himself appearing at the trial to deny the claims.
Despite this, Owens went on to produce an eight-part podcast series and numerous social media posts repeating the false claims, and even escalated them in severity.
“Owens published the series and related X posts with reckless disregard for the truth,” the lawsuit continues. “She was repeatedly presented with credible, verifiable evidence disproving her claims… Instead of correcting the record, she doubled down.”
Extreme and Personal Attacks
In August 2024, Owens stated that she would stake her “professional reputation” on her belief that Brigitte Macron is a transgender woman and went further, claiming the first lady had “raped” Emmanuel Macron when he was 14.
In reality, Macron was 15 when he met Brigitte, then a 40-year-old teacher at his high school. Years later, she divorced her husband and married Macron — a relationship that has been the subject of public scrutiny, but not legal controversy.
Owens has refused to retract her claims, even after direct outreach from the Macrons and documentation refuting the allegations.
Pattern of Misinformation and Hate
Candace Owens, who was ousted from The Daily Wire last year over antisemitic remarks, has a history of targeting LGBTQ+ individuals and marginalised groups. She has:
- Claimed homosexuality is caused by trauma and social contagion,
- Accused JoJo Siwa of faking her sexuality for attention,
- Said she would beat her own grandchild if they came out as trans,
- And falsely linked trans people to mass shootings.
The lawsuit states that Owens’s actions have amounted to “relentless bullying on a worldwide scale.”
“Every time the Macrons leave their home, they do so knowing that countless people have heard, and many believe, these vile fabrications. It is invasive, dehumanising, and deeply unjust.”
