French President Emmanuel Macron has filed a lawsuit against far-right podcaster Candace Owens over her repeated claims that his wife is a man.
The lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday morning in the Superior Court of the State of Delaware, calls Owens’ claims “devastating lies” and adds that the podcast host “disregarded all credible evidence disproving her claim in favor of platforming known conspiracy theorists and proven defamers.”
In 2024, Owens — then a host at Ben Shapiro’s outlet the Daily Wire — boldly stated that she’d stake her “entire professional reputation” on Brigitte Macron being a man. Since then, Owens has repeatedly insisted that the French first lady was indeed born a man. At one point, she even launched an eight-episode series called “Becoming Brigitte” to further examine the baseless conspiracy theory.
That series, the suit alleges, is packed with “outlandish, defamatory, and far-fetched fictions” including “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,” the suit states.
The lawsuit continues:
This is nothing new for Owens. She has built a brand on provocation, not truth. Owens labels herself as an independent “investigative journalist” while routinely peddling misinformation under the guise of legitimate reporting. She has promoted a range of conspiracy theories, including anti-vaccine falsehoods, long-debunked antisemitic tropes such as blood libel, and Holocaust distortion — going so far as to dismiss the atrocities of Josef Mengele’s medical experiments as mere “propaganda.” Her content is not intended to inform but to inflame and attract attention through sensationalism and conspiracy theories.
The Macron family, represented by high-profile American law firm Clare Locke, is seeking damages and demanded a jury trial. A spokesman for Owens told Mediaite that she would respond to the suit on Wednesday’s episode of her podcast.
“Candace will be officially responding to this on her podcast today,” the spokesman said, “as we are just learning about this in the press.”