French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, First Lady Brigitte Macron, have initiated a defamation lawsuit against prominent American right-wing commentator Candace Owens. The complaint, filed on Wednesday, July 23, 2025, in Delaware Superior Court, seeks unspecified damages from Owens and her associated businesses for what the Macrons describe as a sustained campaign of “demonstrably false” and “outlandish” allegations.
At the heart of the lawsuit are Owens’s repeated claims, first made in early 2024, that Brigitte Macron was born a man, stole another person’s identity, and underwent a gender transition. The legal filing further alleges that Owens propagated other far-fetched fictions, including accusations of incest between the presidential couple and the assertion that President Macron is controlled by a CIA-operated mind-control program, such as MKUltra. These claims were extensively disseminated by Owens, notably in an eight-part podcast series titled ‘Becoming Brigitte’.
According to the lawsuit, the Macrons made three separate demands for retractions, with the first sent in December 2024 and the final one on July 1, 2025. However, instead of retracting her statements, Owens allegedly “mocked them and used them as additional fodder for her frenzied fan base,” as stated in the legal documents. The Macrons emphasized in a statement that their decision to pursue legal action came only after Owens consistently reaffirmed these falsehoods despite their attorneys’ repeated requests for a retraction. They expressed their hope that the lawsuit would “set the record straight and end this campaign of defamation once and for all.”
The legal action underscores the significant toll these allegations have taken on the French presidential couple. The lawsuit states that the Macrons have been 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 severe reputational damage, they have incurred “considerable sums of money to correct the public record,” including legal counsel fees. The Macrons’ legal team, led by Clare Locke, a firm known for winning major defamation cases such as the Dominion lawsuit against Fox News, has indicated that the couple is prepared to appear in court in Delaware if necessary, according to The Guardian and CBS News.
In response to the lawsuit, a spokesperson for Candace Owens stated, “Candace Owens is not shutting up. This is a foreign government attacking the First Amendment rights of an American independent journalist.” The spokesperson further claimed that Owens had repeatedly requested an interview with Brigitte Macron, but instead of a comment, the First Lady was “resorting to trying to bully a reporter into submission.”
Owens, a prominent conservative political commentator, has a history of promoting various controversial views and conspiracy theories. Her political positions are often described as far-right. She was dismissed from The Daily Wire, a conservative media outlet, in March 2024, a move believed to be partly related to her promotion of the Brigitte Macron conspiracy theory and other comments regarded as antisemitic. Following her departure, Owens launched her independent YouTube channel and podcast, ‘Candace’, in June 2024, where she continued to amplify the allegations against the Macrons. Her past controversies also include expressing interest in Holocaust denial and the Moon landing being faked, and facing temporary bans from entering Australia and New Zealand due to her views, though the New Zealand ban was later reversed. This lawsuit highlights the ongoing legal battles public figures face in combating the spread of online misinformation and the complexities of defamation law across international borders.
