French President Macron sues US influencer over claim that his wife was born male
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French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte are suing right-wing US influencer Candace Owens.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Follow topic:
- Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron filed a US defamation lawsuit against Candace Owens on July 23 over her false claim that Brigitte is male.
- The Macrons' lawsuit in Delaware alleges Owens waged a "campaign of global humiliation" with lies, including that Brigitte's birth name was Jean-Michel Trogneux.
- The 22-count complaint seeks unspecified damages; as public figures, the Macrons must prove Owens acted with "actual malice" to win the case.
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PARIS - French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte filed a defamation lawsuit in the US on July 23 against right-wing influencer and podcaster Candace Owens, centred on her claim that France’s First Lady is male.
The Macrons said in a lawsuit filed in the Delaware Superior Court that Ms Owens has waged a lie-filled “campaign of global humiliation” and “relentless bullying” to promote her podcast and expand her “frenzied” fan base.
The Macrons said the lies included that Mrs Macron, 72, was born under the name Jean-Michel Trogneux, the actual name of her older brother.
“Owens has dissected their appearance, their marriage, their friends, their family and their personal history – twisting it all into a grotesque narrative designed to inflame and degrade,” the complaint said.
“The result,” the complaint added, “is relentless bullying on a worldwide scale.”
In her podcast on July 23, Ms Owens said “this lawsuit is littered with factual inaccuracies”, and part of an “obvious and desperate public relations strategy” to smear her character.
She also said she did not know a lawsuit was coming, though lawyers for both sides had been communicating since January.
A spokesperson for Ms Owens called the lawsuit itself an effort to bully her, after Mrs Macron rejected Ms Owens’ repeated requests for an interview.
“This is a foreign government attacking the First Amendment rights of an American independent journalist,” the spokesperson said.
In a joint statement released by their lawyers, the Macrons said they sued after Ms Owens rejected three demands that she retract defamatory statements.
“Ms Owens’ campaign of defamation was plainly designed to harass and cause pain to us and our families, and to garner attention and notoriety,” the Macrons said. “We gave her every opportunity to back away from these claims, but she refused.”
The 22-count complaint seeks an unspecified amount of compensatory and punitive damages.
Right-wing influencer Candace Owens has been accused by the Macrons of waging a lie-filled “campaign of global humiliation” and “relentless bullying” to boost her podcast.
PHOTO: REUTERS
High legal standard
The July 23 lawsuit is a rare case of a world leader suing for defamation.
US President Donald Trump has also turned to the courts, including in a US$10 billion (S$12.8 billion) lawsuit accusing The Wall Street Journal of defaming him by claiming that he created a lewd birthday greeting for disgraced late financier Jeffrey Epstein in 2003.
The Journal said it would defend against that case and had full confidence in its reporting.
Last December, Mr Trump reached a US$15 million settlement with Walt Disney-owned ABC over an inaccurate claim that a jury found him liable for rape, rather than sexual assault, in a civil lawsuit.
To prevail in US defamation cases, public figures must show the defendants engaged in “actual malice”, a tough legal standard requiring proof that the defendants knew what they published was false or had reckless disregard for its truth.
Ms Owens has more than 6.9 million followers on social media platform X and more than 4.5 million YouTube subscribers.
Tucker Carlson, Joe 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 linked to it.
According to the Macrons, the series spread “verifiably false and devastating lies”, including that Mrs Macron stole another person’s identity and transitioned to female, and that the Macrons are blood relatives committing incest.
The complaint discusses the circumstances under which the Macrons met, when the now 47-year-old President was a high school student and Mrs Macron was a teacher. It said their relationship “remained within the bounds of the law”.
According to the complaint, baseless speculation about Mrs Macron’s gender began surfacing in 2021, and the topic has been discussed on popular podcasts hosted by commenters Tucker Carlson and Joe Rogan, who have many conservative followers.
Last September, Mrs Macron won a lawsuit in a French court against two women, including a self-described medium, who contributed to spreading rumours about her gender.
An appeals court overturned that decision in July, and Mrs Macron has appealed to France’s highest court. REUTERS
