Macron sues American influencer over claim his wife was born male

(Patria) - French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte filed a defamation lawsuit in the United States on Wednesday against right-wing influencer and podcaster Candace Owens, over her claim that the French first lady is a man, Reuters reported.

The Macrons stated in the lawsuit filed in the Superior Court of Delaware that Owens led a "campaign of global humiliation" filled with lies to promote her podcast and expand her "rabid" fan base.

The Macrons said that among the lies was that Brigitte Macron (72), born under the name Jean-Michel Trogneux, is actually the name of her older brother.

"Owens analyzed their appearance, their marriage, their friends, their family, and their personal history - all twisted into a grotesque narrative designed to inflame and humiliate," the lawsuit states. "The result," it adds, "is relentless harassment on a global scale."

In a statement, a spokesperson for Owens called the lawsuit itself an attempt to harass her, after Brigitte Macron rejected Owens' repeated requests for an interview.

"Candace Owens will not be silenced," the spokesperson said. "This is a foreign government attacking the First Amendment rights of an American independent journalist."

In a joint statement released by their lawyers, the Macrons said they sued after Owens refused three requests to retract the defamatory statements.

"Ms. Owens' campaign of defamation was clearly designed to harass and cause pain to us and our families, and to attract attention and notoriety," the Macrons said. "We gave her every opportunity to drop these claims, but she refused."

High legal standard

The lawsuit on Wednesday is a rare case of a world leader suing for defamation.
US President Donald Trump has also turned to the courts, including a ten-billion-dollar lawsuit accusing the Wall Street Journal of defamation by claiming that in 2003 he created a lascivious birthday card for the disgraced late financier Jeffrey Epstein.

The Journal has stated it will defend against that case and has full confidence in its reporting.

Meanwhile, in December, Trump reached a fifteen-million-dollar settlement with ABC, owned by Walt Disney, over an inaccurate claim that a jury in a civil case found him liable for rape, rather than sexual assault.

To succeed in US defamation cases, public figures must show that the accused acted with "actual malice," a strict legal standard requiring proof that the accused knew what they published was false or recklessly disregarded that truth.

Owens has more than 6.9 million followers on X and more than 4.5 million subscribers on YouTube.

Carlson and Rogan

The Macrons' lawsuit focuses on the eight-part podcast "Becoming Brigitte," which has more than 2.3 million views on YouTube, and X posts related to it.

According to the Macrons, the series spread "verifiably false and devastating lies," including that Brigitte Macron stole another person's identity and changed her identity to a woman, and that the Macrons are blood relatives who committed incest.
The lawsuit examines the circumstances under which the Macrons met, when the current president (49) was a high school student and Brigitte was a teacher. It states that their relationship "remained within the bounds of the law."

According to the lawsuit, baseless speculation about Brigitte Macron's gender began to appear in 2021, and the topic was discussed on popular podcasts hosted by Tucker Carlson and Joe Rogan, who have many conservative followers.

In September, Brigitte won a lawsuit in a French court against two women, including a self-proclaimed medium, who contributed to spreading rumors about her gender. An appeals court overturned that decision this month, and Brigitte Macron has appealed to France's highest court.