The French president, Emmanuel Macron, and his wife, Brigitte Macron, are suing the rightwing commentator Candace Owens for defamation.
In a suit filed on Wednesday in Delaware against Owens and her businesses, the Macrons say Owens has engaged in ongoing defamatory attacks against them in order to elevate her media platform, gain more audience and make money.
Owens said in early 2024 that she would “stake [her] entire professional reputation on the fact that Brigitte Macron is in fact a man”. Since then, she has doubled down on these claims and added more, including in an eight-part podcast series called Becoming Brigitte, the lawsuit alleges.
The Macrons sought retractions from Owens, the suit says, for the “demonstrably false” claims she has made about them but she instead “mocked them and used them as additional fodder for her frenzied fan base”.
“These outlandish, defamatory, and far-fetched fictions included 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.
“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,” the Macrons said in a statement. “Ms Owens’ campaign of defamation was plainly designed to harass and cause pain to us and our families and to garner attention and notoriety. We gave her every opportunity to back away from these claims, but she refused. It is our earnest hope that this lawsuit will set the record straight and end this campaign of defamation once and for all.”
The falsehoods have taken a toll on the Macrons, who are now subjected to “a campaign of global humiliation, turning their lives into fodder for profit-driven lies” and “relentless bullying on a worldwide scale”. Beyond the reputational damage, they have spent “considerable sums of money to correct the public record”, including on legal counsel.
“Every time the Macrons leave their home, they do so knowing that countless people have heard, and many believe, these vile fabrications. It is invasive, dehumanizing, and deeply unjust,” the suit says.
According to the Financial Times, the Macrons are willing to appear in court in Delaware for a trial. They are represented by Clare Locke, a heavyweight law firm that has won major defamation cases, including the Dominion lawsuit against Fox News.
The lawsuit came after the Macrons have sent three separate retraction demands to Owens that included evidence disproving her claims, which she has used to “further taunt the Macrons” and “invent even more damaging lies”, a press release from Locke says.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Owens said the commentator was “not shutting up”. Owens is expected to address the lawsuit on her show on Wednesday.
“This is a foreign government attacking the first amendment rights of an American independent journalist. Candace repeatedly requested an interview with Brigitte Macron. Instead of offering a comment, Brigitte is resorting to trying to bully a reporter into submission. In France, politicians can bully journalists, but this is not France. It’s America.”
It is unusual for a sitting president to sue a journalist, though Donald Trump has filed multiple lawsuits, some of which have led to settlements, against US media outlets in recent months.
Attacks on Brigitte Macron’s appearance and falsehoods about her gender have circulated for years, though Owens amplified them considerably in the US. Other prominent women in politics, including Michelle Obama and Kamala Harris have faced these kinds of “secretly transgender” social media campaigns, the Wilson Center noted in a 2021 report on the “deeply misogynistic” trend. “These narratives tap into the trope of the duplicitous woman, implying that not only are transgender individuals inherently deceptive, but that this deception is responsible for the power and influence that these women hold,” the report said.
The Macrons have previously filed legal claims against two women in France over their theory that Brigitte Macron is a biological male. They were initially found guilty of libel, though that was then overturned, which Brigitte Macron has now appealed.
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