Macrons sue Candace Owens for claiming Brigitte was born a man

The couple’s libel lawsuit in Delaware seeks to correct the public record after the American influencer’s ‘relentless bullying’.

Owens began promoting the claim Mrs Macron was transgender on her YouTube channel, which has four million subscribers, in January.

President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte, have started libel proceedings against a right-wing influencer who has promoted the conspiracy theory that the French first lady was born a man.

The Macrons filed a suit in a Delaware court on Wednesday against Candace Owens, a 36-year-old US podcaster. Owens began promoting the claim Mrs Macron was transgender on her YouTube channel, which has four million subscribers, in January.

Last week the Macrons appealed in France against a decision by judges to overturn the earlier conviction of two other women, Amandine Roy and Natacha Rey, who had also spread false claims that Mrs Macron, 72, was born Jean-Michel Trogneux.

The Delaware defamation suit centres on Owens’ eight-part series Becoming Brigitte, which has received more than 2.3 million views, and associated podcasts.

“I would stake my career on defending the truth about Brigitte Macron,” Owens said, going on to recount tales circulating on the internet about supposed incest and pedophilia.

She has also spread theories that Mr Macron, 47, is a product of a CIA human experiment or a government mind-control program.

Candace Owens came to prominence during President Donald Trump’s first term. Picture: Instagram

The lawsuit requests a jury trial and accuses Owens of publishing “outlandish, defamatory and far-fetched fictions”.

It says the couple suffered substantial damage to their reputation and have spent heavily to correct the public record.

Owens has twisted the couple’s history “into a grotesque narrative designed to inflame and degrade”, it says.

It asks for the award of an unspecified amount of punitive and compensatory damages for what it calls a “campaign of global humiliation” and “relentless bullying” by Owens.

“Every time the Macrons leave their home, they do so knowing that countless people have heard, and many believe, these vile fabrications,” the suit says.

The couple’s lawyers said Owens drew on the claims propagated by Roy and Rey, knowing they had been proven false in France.

She has acted “in reckless disregard for facts and evidence in her possession”, the suit says, adding that the Macrons are prepared to travel to Delaware to testify.

Defamation suits involving public figures are notoriously difficult to win in the US, as the plaintiff has to prove the defendant knew their information was false and acted out of malice.

Brigitte and Emmanuel Macron have been married since 2007. Picture: AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali, Pool

The claims about Mrs Macron, who was born Brigitte Trogneux and whose older brother is Jean-Michel Trogneux, have also been aired in the US by right-wing commentator Tucker Carlson and podcaster Joe Rogan.

In April, Carlson said: “I was like, I love Candace, but this is too crazy ... and then it turns out she’s right.”

Mr Macron and the French government have accused the Russian GRU military intelligence service and cyber-operatives it controls of amplifying the theories about Mrs Macron’s origins as part of a broad campaign to discredit the President and sow strife in France.

In a statement the Macrons said: “Because Ms Owens systematically reaffirmed these falsehoods in response to each of our attorneys’ repeated requests for a retraction, we ultimately concluded that referring the matter to a court of law was the only remaining avenue.”

Thomas Clare, the couple’s US lawyer, said: “They believe it’s important to stand up for themselves.”

The 218-page suit goes into unusual detail in denying Owens’ claims of impropriety when the 15-year-old future president fell for his future wife, who was a 39-year-old teacher at his school in Amiens.

“At all times, the teacher-student relationship between Mrs Macron and President Macron remained within the bounds of the law,” it says.

“When (his) parents became aware of his strong feelings for his teacher, they decided to transfer him to Lycee Henri-IV in Paris.

“Mrs Macron encouraged him to leave and was confident he would fall in love with a peer.

“Yet, before his departure, he told her, ‘Whatever you do, I will marry you’,”

The Times