Candace Owens slapped with lawsuit for claiming French president’s wife was ‘born a man’

Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron say Owens pushed “verifiably false” conspiracy theories to increase her viewership and monetize her growing platform.

Conservative pundit Candace Owens was hit with a defamation lawsuit filed by French President Emmanuel Macron for her repeated false claims that his wife was born a man.

Macron and the first lady of France, Brigitte Macron, accuse Owens of “relentless bullying on a worldwide scale” in the civil suit that seeks an unspecified amount of punitive damages.

Since March 2024, Owens has asserted on her podcast and other media platforms that Brigitte Macron was a transgender woman and that the Macrons had been committing crimes—including forgery, fraud, and even murder—to conceal the alleged secret.

In the defamation suit, which was filed in Delaware on Wednesday, the Macrons accuse Owens of “intentionally” pushing years-long conspiracies associated with Brigette Macron’s gender identity. Attorneys for France’s first couple say Owens did so knowing that many of her claims were “verifiably false” and that others who made those claims were found liable for defamation in other lawsuits filed by the Macrons.

Owens, her company, Candace LLC, and her website operator GEORGETOM, INC., are accused of knowingly repeating false claims about Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron, most especially Brigitte’s gender identity, to increase her viewership and monetize her growing platform that tops 4 million subscribers on YouTube.

“These lies have caused tremendous damage to the Macrons. Defendants have subjected the Macrons to a campaign of global humiliation, turning
their lives into fodder for profit-driven lies,” reads the lawsuit. “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 Macrons say that, as a result of “relentless bullying on a worldwide scale,” they are faced with having to leave their home “knowing that countless people have heard, and many believe, these vile fabrications.” The suit adds, “It is invasive, dehumanizing, and deeply unjust.”

Owens has remained defiant in her claims about the first lady of France, once writing on X that she would “stake [her] entire professional reputation on the fact that Brigitte Macron is in fact a man.”

In an attempt to establish a pattern of making false statements, the defamation lawsuit details countless other false claims or conspiracy theories that Owens has promoted on her platforms, including “anti-vaccine falsehoods” and “long-debunked antisemitic tropes.”

“Her content is not intended to inform but to inflame and attract attention through sensationalism and conspiracy theories,” the Macrons’ attorneys argue.

A spokesperson for Owens said she “is not shutting up” and would address the lawsuit in her show later Wednesday, reports The Washington Post.

The Macrons say that Owens refused to retract her “long-debunked” claims despite repeated requests and that she, in fact, resorted to retaliation for doing so.

“She has built a brand on provocation, not truth,” the Macrons said of Owens, who, as noted in the lawsuit, “labels herself as an independent ‘investigative journalist’ while routinely peddling misinformation under the guise of legitimate reporting.”

Over the years, Owens has built a massive audience as a prominent Black conservative. She often goes viral for her political and cultural commentary. Owens gained considerably more notoriety after a public endorsement from rapper Kanye West and later Donald Trump, whom she has grown more critical of due to the president’s foreign policy in Gaza and the Middle East, and his refusal to release FBI files related to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.