Brigitte Macron is no stranger to scrutiny, and the public’s bottomless hunger for knowledge about every scrap of her private life.
Ever since her husband Emmanuel became the Président de la République eight years ago, the 25-year-age gap of France‘s first couple has sparked debate: are they the blueprint of a progressive modern family, or a Freudian nightmare?
The 72-year-old daughter of chocolatiers met her husband, now 47, when he was a 15-year-old in her drama class in a Catholic school in Amiens, northern France.
She was 39, married, with a son and two daughters, the eldest of which shared a class with the future president.
But public obsession into the couple’s unconventional relationship has in recent years transformed into something more sinister: paranoid and unsubstantiated claims that Brigitte was born a man.
And now, the Macrons will be forced to submit ‘photographic’ and ‘scientific’ evidence to disprove the claims and demonstrate irrefutably that Brigitte is a woman in an unprecedented U.S. court case.
It comes after the couple filed a defamation lawsuit in July against one of the French first lady’s biggest detractors: right-wing influencer Candace Owens, who made headlines last year when she announced she would stake her ‘entire professional reputation on the fact that Brigitte Macron is in fact a man’.
But how did it get to this point?
What follows is the extraordinary story of how a baseless internet rumour that the French president’s wife was born a male spiralled into one of the most high-profile and bizarre court cases of the day.
The defamation lawsuit, filed in Delaware in July, has sparked a fierce response from Owens, who is now accusing the Macrons of launching a ‘baseless’ legal campaign to silence her reporting. Pictured: French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte
Owens (pictured) and her legal team argue that the Macrons’ suit is a ‘politically motivated’ attempt to suppress free speech
Owens produced ‘before-and-after’ photos to cite similarities between an undated photo of Brigitte’s brother and the first lady herself, to corroborate the debunked conspiracy that the 72-year-old is a transgender woman
Brigitte Trogneux was born in 1953 in the charming city of Amiens, the ancient capital of Picardie, located between Paris and Lille on the River Somme.
Her family ran a confectionary shop in Place Notre Dame in the city centre, specialising in macarons. Today, the upmarket brand lives on, with sixth-generation chocolatier – Brigitte’s great-nephew Jean-Baptise Trogneux – having recently opened a new outpost in Paris.
In 1974 aged 21, she married her first husband, 23-year-old Andre-Louis Auziere who later became a banker, and the pair of young lovers had three children born in 1975, 1977 and 1984.
This is Brigitte’s life story, but according to a dedicated army of internet conspiracy theorists, it’s all a lie.
As the debunked hypothesis goes, Auziere, who died in 2019 aged 69, never actually existed, and the Brigitte’s three children were birthed by a woman called Catherine Auzière.
The spurious claims were born from a 2021 ‘investigation’ published in an small, far-right magazine accused of platforming antisemitism and conspiracy theories, called Faits et Documents (Facts & Documents).
Describing the outlet at the time of the article’s publication, the New Statesman wrote: ‘Its pages, which do not draw heavily on either facts or documents, include one section on “lobbies”, which criticises the supposed influence of various interest groups, such as Jews, Freemasons and homosexuals.’
The piece, co-authored by self-styled independent journalist Natacha Rey and Xavier Poussard, went unnoticed for some time.
That was until Rey gave an interview on YouTube about her unfounded speculations with ‘spiritual medium’ Delphine Jégousse – alias Amandine Roy – in a four-hour video that went viral before France’s 2022 presidential election.
In the video, Rey made the spurious claim that she had evidence of Brigitte’s transition, citing an old photograph of the Trogneux family in which a little girl with a pudding bowl haircut is sat on her mother’s knee.
The little girl with a pudding bowl haircut sitting on her mother’s knee is Brigitte Trogneux, and far left is her brother Jean-Michel
Brigitte Macron photographed as a child
Brigitte at her wedding to André-Louis Auzière (circled) in June 1974. He died in December 2019 at the age of 69
According to Rey, the smiling little girl isn’t Brigitte, but Nathalie Farcy – who was orphaned when Brigitte’s older sister Maryvonne was killed in a car crash.
She identified the boy in a checked shirt on the far left as the future first lady – not her brother Jean-Michel – claiming the child underwent a sex change operation in the early 1980s aged 30.
The journalist’s trigger to investigate was Brigitte’s ‘physique’, she claimed, alleging that experts including cosmetic surgeons ‘all agree with me that [Brigitte Macron] is a transsexual’.
But the peculiar theory was easily debunked, not least because the birth of Brigitte was veritably recorded on April 13, 1953, in the Courrier Picard daily newspaper.
Referring to Brigitte’s three sisters and two brothers, it reads: ‘Anne-Marie, Jean-Claude, Maryvonne, Monique and Jean-Michel Trogneux have great joy in announcing the arrival of their little sister, Brigitte.’
Moreover, the Faits et Documents magazine said Elysee officials ‘had been unable to provide a photograph of Brigitte as a child’.
The Daily Mail found numerous records in reputable French publications, however, including a seven-year-old Brigitte taking her first Holy Communion, one of her playing in the garden of her home, as well as all in white on her wedding day, with her first (late) husband.
Despite the theory having no basis in reality, some 500,000 watched the pair discuss the ‘state lie’ and ‘scam’ they had supposedly uncovered about the true identity of Macron’s wife.
While the French president declined to comment at the time, Brigitte finally broke her silence in a French radio show in December 2021, which she had been invited on to discuss bullying: ‘If I do not address it, if I do not do anything after four years of working against bullying, I will not be listened to,’ she said.
Within a month, she filed a complaint against Rey and the self-professed clairvoyant, suing them for libel in an attempt to kill the rumour that was plaguing her family’s everyday life.
The two women were found to have defamed Brigitte by the Paris Criminal Court in September 2024, handed a suspended fine of €500 (£440) and ordered to pay a total of €8,000 in damages to the first lady and €5,000 to her brother.
The bizarre and upsetting saga should have ended there, but unfortunately for the Macrons, that was only the beginning.
France’s President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron attend a ceremony during their visit to The British Museum in London on July 9, 2025
Rey gave an interview on YouTube about her unfounded speculations with ‘spiritual medium’ Delphine Jégousse (pictured) – alias Amandine Roy – in a four-hour video that went viral before France’s 2022 presidential election
Natacha Rey is at the origin of the conspiracy rumour which claims that Brigitte Macron is lying about the reality of her gender and is actually called Jean-Michel Trogneux
Candace Owens, a pro-Trump commentator with over five million YouTube subscribers and seven million X followers, resurfaced the vicious conspiracy theory in a now-deleted YouTube video in March last year.
She even launched a podcast saga dedicated to proving the veracity of her claims called ‘Becoming Bridget’ – an ‘investigative series’ designed to convince her followers that France’s first lady is in fact a biological man.
‘Candace introduces her investigative series on Brigitte Macron,’ a description on IMDB reads, ‘alleging that her marriage to Emmanuel Macron was the result of media manipulation, PR cover-ups, and an extensive propaganda campaign.’ Episodes are frequently rated eight or nine out of ten by transfixed listeners.
‘When I said that I would stake my entire professional career on the fact that Brigitte Macron, the current first lady of France was born a man, there were many people of course who did not believe me because that just sounds crazy,’ the outspoken social media personality told her audience.
It is widely known that Owens, who is married to the son of multimillionaire British peer Lord Farmer, is no stranger to conspiracy theories. She has previously called the Covid-19 vaccine ‘pure evil’ and claimed ‘secret Jewish gangs’ are doing ‘horrific things’ in Hollywood.
And she’s taken the unfounded theory about Brigitte having a sex change to a whole new level – alleging that the Macrons were blood relatives ‘committing incest’ and that Emmanuel came to power as the result of a CIA ‘mind control’ programme.
The controversial commentator, who has previously worked for conservative organisations like Turning Point and outlet Daily Wire, even sold T-shirts displaying Brigitte on a mocked-up TIME magazine ‘Man of the Year’ cover.
Eventually, the Macrons reached the end of their tether, filing a defamation lawsuit against the social media personality on July 23 and accusing her of spreading ‘outlandish, defamatory, and far-fetched fictions’.
In a 218-page lawsuit filed in a court in the U.S. state of Delaware, the pair described Owens, 36, as ‘far-right conspiracy theorist who thrives on making outrageous claims, prioritising shock value and follower-growth over truth or responsible discourse’.
The Macrons are seeking unspecified punitive damages, saying their accuser subjected them to a ‘campaign of global humiliation’. Under U.S. law, they must prove that Owens acted with ‘actual malice’ and knowingly spread false rumours.
Responding to the lawsuit, Owens dismissed it as ‘goofy’ and an ‘obvious, desperate public relations strategy’ on the behalf of Brigitte.
‘You were born a man and you will die a man,’ she said in a YouTube video this July, doubling down on her claims. ‘So give us a sample. I’ll send my doctors to take your blood. We’ll get to the bottom of it.
‘We’re revolting against the perverts that run the world… I think you’re sick. I think you’re disgusting.’
To make matters worse for the Macrons, a Paris appeals court overturned earlier convictions against Roy and Rey in July. The decision was made on freedom of expression grounds, not on the basis of truth – ruling that the pair had every legal right to make the unfounded allegations about Brigitte’s supposed sex.
The first lady’s lawyers indicated that she was ‘devastated’ by the development and she is appealing the decision at France’s Cour de Cassation.
Brigitte Macron attends the Banquet for the President, hosted for French President Emmanuel Macron and her, on day two of their state visit to Britain, at the Guildhall in central London, Britain July 9, 2025
French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron in the UK on July 9, 2025
And so the curious saga continues. Tom Clare, the Macrons’ lead counsel in the case, told the BBC’s Fame Under Fire podcast about the significant private pain that the unwieldly rumour has caused for the couple.
He described how ‘it is a process that she will have to subject herself to in a very public way,’ providing ‘scientific’ evidence of her biological sex on the world stage – potentially including pregnancy photos.
‘It is incredibly upsetting to think that you have to go and subject yourself, to put this type of proof forward,’ he said.
He acknowledged that the claims had been a ‘distraction’ to the French president, adding: ‘I don’t want to suggest that it somehow has thrown him off his game. He’s not immune from that because he’s the president of a country.’
Speaking at an International Women’s Day event last year, Emmanuel expressed despair about the obsessive rumours surrounding his wife – implying that the endless speculation has taken a toll on the everyday.
‘The worst thing is the false information and fabricated scenarios,’ he said. ‘People eventually believe them and disturb you, even in your intimacy.’
But heated debate and salacious gossip has followed the couple ever since they rose to prominence when Emmanuel took office in 2017.
Some have insisted the unconventional relationship begun as a dangerously irresponsible one – allegations both parties have always denied – but Brigitte later admitted that being romantically involved ‘with such a young boy was crippling’.
‘My head was a mess,’ she confessed in a rare interview with Paris Match in 2023, reminiscing about when she became intimate with the teenager at the Lycée la Providence, a Jesuit high school in Amiens.
Emmanuel was briefly sent to study in Paris by his concerned parents – both doctors – who were eager to split the couple up, but such interventions to stop the relationship were ineffective.
‘Emmanuel had to leave for Paris. I told myself that he would fall in love with someone his [own] age. It didn’t happen,’ Brigitte said. Meanwhile, a 17-year-old Emmanuel would tell his older lover from miles away: ‘Whatever you do, I will marry you.’
The couple wed 2007, 21 months after Brigitte divorced Auziere. At the time of their wedding, he was 29 and she was 54.
Ever since, the masses have relished analysing their age-gap relationship, with speculation into the state of their bond reaching a climax when Brigitte was caught angrily hitting her husband in a very public row this May.
Only time will tell whether the upcoming lawsuit will finally put an end to the relentless scrutiny of France’s most famous couple, or whether yet another tantalising internet rumour will simply emerge instead.
