Macron sues American lady for claiming France’s First Lady ‘is a man’

French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte Macron, have launched a defamation lawsuit against American right-wing commentator and podcaster Candace Owens, accusing her of spreading false and harmful allegations — including that Brigitte is a man who secretly transitioned into woman.

Filed in Delaware Superior Court on Wednesday, the suit alleges Owens conducted a “campaign of global humiliation” aimed at drawing attention to her podcast and boosting her online following.

According to the legal filing, Owens falsely claimed that Brigitte Macron, 72, was born as Jean-Michel Trogneux — the name of Brigitte’s 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 complaint states.“The result,” it continues, “is relentless bullying on a worldwide scale.”

Responding on her podcast, Owens said, “This lawsuit is littered with factual inaccuracies,” dismissing it as “an obvious and desperate public relations strategy” to damage her reputation. She also claimed to have been unaware that legal action was imminent, despite ongoing communication between attorneys on both sides since January.

A representative for Owens accused the Macrons of attempting to silence her. “This is a foreign government attacking the First Amendment rights of an American independent journalist,” the spokesperson said.

In a joint statement issued through their legal team, the Macrons said they turned to the courts only after Owens ignored three formal requests to retract her statements.

“Ms. Owens’s campaign of defamation was plainly designed to harass and cause pain to us and our families and to garner attention and notoriety,” the couple said. “We gave her every opportunity to back away from these claims, but she refused.”

The case is a notable example of a sitting head of state pursuing defamation claims in U.S. courts.

The suit comes at a time when other prominent political figures have also resorted to defamation litigation. Former U.S. President Donald Trump, for example, is pursuing a $10 billion lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal over claims it made regarding a 2003 video involving Jeffrey Epstein. Trump recently reached a $15 million settlement with ABC over an inaccurate characterization of a civil trial verdict.

Under U.S. law, public figures must meet a high bar to win defamation cases. They must prove “actual malice,” meaning that the defendant knowingly spread false information or acted with reckless disregard for the truth.

Owens commands a large online following, with more than 6.9 million followers on X and over 4.5 million YouTube subscribers.

The Macrons’ lawsuit centers on Owens’s eight-episode podcast series Becoming Brigitte, which has drawn more than 2.3 million views on YouTube. The legal complaint states that the series contains “verifiably false and devastating lies,” including assertions that Brigitte Macron stole someone else’s identity, transitioned to female, and that the couple are blood relatives engaged in incest.

The complaint also refers to the period when Emmanuel Macron, now 47, met Brigitte while he was her high school student. The couple’s relationship, the lawsuit notes, “remained within the bounds of the law.”

Rumours about Brigitte Macron’s gender reportedly began circulating in 2021 and have been amplified by popular conservative media figures including Tucker Carlson and Joe Rogan.

Last year, Brigitte Macron won a defamation case in a French court against two women — one of whom claimed to be a medium — over similar allegations. However, a higher court later overturned that decision, and she has since appealed to France’s Supreme Court.

The U.S. case is titled Macron et al v Owens et al, Delaware Superior Court, No. N25C-07-194.

(REUTERS)