President Emmanuel Macron and First Lady Brigitte have filed a defamation action against the U.S. pundit Candace Owens, who has repeated and amplified the assertion that both halves of the power couple were born male. Filed on Wednesday, July 23rd, in the state of Delaware, the legal action accuses Owens of spreading “outlandish, defamatory, and far-fetched fictions.”
In March 2024 Owens stated she would stake her “entire professional reputation” on her belief that Mme Macron, 72, “is in fact a man.” If Owens is proven to have knowingly repeated this falsehood, the claimants/plaintiffs in the case, the Macrons, could add ‘actual malice’ to the lawsuit under U.S. defamation law. For now, their legal action states
Ms. Owens’ campaign of defamation was plainly designed to harass and cause pain to us and our families and to garner attention and notoriety.
Similar claims are being contested in France. On Thursday, July 10th, the Paris appeals court overturned the earlier convictions of two women who spread the ‘fake news’ that Brigitte Macron used to be a man named Jean-Michel Trogneux—who is actually Brigitte’s brother. In response, Mme Macron has taken her case to a higher court.
The U.S.-based lawsuit against Owens, targeting both her and her Delaware-listed companies, also asserts that Owens falsely alleged that the French president and his wife are blood relatives and that Macron himself was installed in office as part of a secret CIA conspiracy.
