There have been some uncomfortable signs lately that all is now well in the marriage of Emmanuel Macron, President of France, and his wife Brigitte. You may have seen this clip in which Brigitte seems to be shoving her husband’s face away before they disembark from a plane.
French President Emmanuel Macron shoved in face by wife Brigitte in front of world’s media 😳 pic.twitter.com/R1pnj4DIL6
— Daily Mail (@DailyMail) May 26, 2025
It wasn’t clear at the time what had motivated that outburst but it happened not long after Candace Owens revived claims made last year that Brigitte Macron was actually born male. Was that something that was causing upset on the other side of the Atlantic? Apparently it was, because today Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron sued Owens. Here’s a bit of the legal complaint.
In March 2024, Candace Owens, a right-wing podcaster, told the world she “would stake [her] entire professional reputation on the fact that Brigitte Macron [the First Lady of France] is in fact a man.” Since then, Owens has used this false statement to promote her independent platform, gain notoriety, and make money. Owens disregarded all credible evidence disproving her claim in favor of platforming known conspiracy theorists and proven defamers. And rather than engage with President and Mrs. Macron’s attempts to set the record straight, Owens mocked them and used them as additional fodder for her frenzied fan base.
Owens did not stop there. Retaliating against the Macrons for the “audacity” of sending her a retraction demand, Owens helmed an eight-part podcast series entitled “Becoming Brigitte” (the “Series”) and accompanying X posts. Throughout the Series, Owens and her entities, Candace Owens LLC and GeorgeTom, Inc., endorsed, repeated, and published a series of verifiably false and devastating lies about the Macrons, on which this complaint is based. These outlandish, defamatory, and far-fetched fictions included that Mrs. Macron was born a man, stole another person’s identity, and transitioned to become Brigitte; Mrs. Macron and President Macron are blood relatives committing incest; President Macron was chosen to be the President of France as part of the CIA-operated MKUltra program or a similar mind-control program; and Mrs. Macron and President Macron are committing forgery, fraud, and abuses of power to conceal these secrets.
These claims are demonstrably false, and Owens knew they were false when she published them. Yet, she published them anyway. And the reason is clear: it is not the pursuit of truth, but the pursuit of fame. After being fired from The Daily Wire, Owens used these demonstrably false claims to promote her independent podcast, Candace. Owens’ fan base has grown to 6.9 million followers on X and 4.47 million subscribers on YouTube. The most popular podcasts in the world have discussed her “investigation” into the Macrons’ history. She launched a revamped website, CandaceOwens.com, fueled by her desire to make these specific false claims about the Macrons, without adhering to content moderation policies…
Owens published the Series and related X posts with reckless disregard for the truth. Owens was repeatedly presented with credible, verifiable evidence disproving her claims—including documentation, public records, and direct outreach from the Macrons. Instead of correcting the record, she doubled down. At the time, Mrs. Macron had won French defamation claims against others who pushed these same baseless theories, underscoring both their falsity and defamatory sting. Owens knew this. Yet Owens, fully aware of the truth, has not only declined to retract her statements but has actively expanded on them.
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. 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 result is relentless bullying on a worldwide scale. Every time the Macrons leave their home, they do 3 so knowing that countless people have heard, and many believe, these vile fabrications. It is invasive, dehumanizing, and deeply unjust.
So, yeah, I’d say they are pretty upset by these claims. As for the underlying allegations:
On April 13, 1953, in Amiens, France, Mrs. Macron was born Brigitte Trogneux—a woman. She was the youngest of six children in a prominent chocolate-making family in Amiens. An image of her birth announcement and family photo featuring Mrs. Macron as a child is below.
Mrs. Macron married her first husband, André-Louis Auzière, in 1974 when she was 21. They had three children: Laurence, Sébastien, and Tiphaine. A photo from Mrs. Macron’s and Mr. Auzière’s wedding is below.
The complaint includes photos. The wedding photo mentioned above is this one:
A rare picture of Brigitte Macron the French First Lady on her wedding with her first husband. She left him for #EmmanuelMacron who was her pupil. pic.twitter.com/ff2e66JP4P
— Eva Cohen Steiner (@eva_ecs019) April 15, 2022
Of course you can’t be more of a public figure than being the First Lady of France, so in American courts there will be a pretty high bar to prove defamation as this BBC report points out.
Under US law the Macrons will have to prove “actual malice” – meaning that the defendant knew the information was false, but published or broadcast it anyway.
In September a French court found two women guilty of libel for spreading the false claims about Brigitte Macron, however that decision was overturned on appeal earlier this month, according to the AFP news agency.
Owens’ spokesperson gave a statement to the Washington Post:
A spokesperson for Owens said she “is not shutting up” and would address the lawsuit in her show later Wednesday.
“This is a foreign government attacking the First Amendment rights of an American independent journalist,” the spokesperson said.
It’s a high bar but Owens is probably going to spend a lot of money defending this in court. She actually first talked about this last year, just before her departure from the Daily Wire. But she revived the claims in a series of videos earlier this year. The Daily Wire is not mentioned in this lawsuit other than the fact that Owens worked there and she was let go about a week after publishing two videos making the claims about Brigitte Macron. After her departure both videos were taken down by the Daily Wire.
Reading through some of the detailed claims, i.e. what Owens has said and what the retraction letter proved to be false, I think she might actually be in trouble here. Actual malice is a high bar but some of the claims Owens has made may in fact be things she knew to be false. For instance:
On January 11, 2025, Defendants reposted on X the false assertion that the December Retraction Demand admitted that Mrs. Macron raped President Macron. This was blatantly false, and Owens knew it. The truth was that the December Retraction Demand pointedly denied that the President was statutorily raped.
On January 12, 2025, Defendants again reposted another claim that the December Retraction Demand admitted that Mrs. Macron raped President Macron and agreed it “was indeed the most stunning admission from the letter.” Owens repeated this claim on Defendants’ January 13, 2025 episode. Again, Owens knew these statements were false when she made them, but the truth did not matter when there were followers to be gained.
The complaint ultimately includes 22 separate counts of defamation for which the plaintiffs are seeking relief. No dollar amount is mentioned but presumably this would add up to millions of dollars when including actual damages, punitive damages and court costs.
