Macron and wife sue right-wing influencer and podcaster Candace Owens in US for defamation
The French first family has reported relentless bullying on a worldwide scale since the remarks by Owens
French President Emmanuel Macron and his spouse, Brigitte, have sued right-wing influencer and podcaster Candace Owens following her remarks that Macron’s spouse is a lady but was born male.
In the lawsuit filed in the US’s Delaware Superior Court, Macron and Brigitte have accused the podcaster of Owens of having waged a lie-filled “campaign of global humiliation” to promote her podcast and expand her “frenzied” fan base.
“These lies included that Brigitte Macron, 72, was born under the name Jean-Michel Trogneux, the actual name of her older brother. 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 French president and the spouse said in the complaint.
The French first family has reported relentless bullying on a worldwide scale since the remarks by Owens.
Reacting to the suit yesterday during her podcast, Owens said the complaint is full of factual inaccuracies, as she added that the Macrons are ‘obviously’ and desperately looking for a public relations strategy to smear her character.
Owens also said she did not know a lawsuit was coming, though lawyers for both sides had been communicating since January.
Lawyers representing the Macrons said they sued after Owens rejected three demands that she retract defamatory statements.
”Owens’s campaign of defamation was designed to harass and cause pain to us and our families and to garner attention and notoriety,” the Macrons said. “We gave her every opportunity to back away from these claims, but she refused.”
Wednesday’s lawsuit is a rare case of a world leader suing for defamation.
To prevail in U.S. defamation cases, public figures must show defendants engaged in “actual malice,” a tough legal standard requiring proof that the defendants knew what they published was false or had reckless disregard for its truth.
The Macrons’ lawsuit focuses on the eight-part podcast “Becoming Brigitte,” which has more than 2.3 million views on YouTube, and X posts linked to it.
According to the Macrons, the series spread “verifiably false and devastating lies,” including that Brigitte Macron stole another person’s identity and transitioned to female, and that the Macrons are blood relatives committing incest.
The complaint discusses circumstances under which the Macrons met, when the now 47-year-old president was a high school student and Brigitte was a teacher. It said their relationship “remained within the bounds of the law.”
According to the complaint, baseless speculation about Brigitte Macron’s gender began surfacing in 2021, and the topic has been discussed on popular podcasts hosted by Tucker Carlson and Joe Rogan, who have many conservative followers.
This is even as last September, Brigitte won a lawsuit in a French court against two women, including a self-described medium, who contributed to spreading rumors about her gender.
However, an appeals court overturned that decision this month, and Brigitte Macron have appealed to France’s highest court.
