Brigitte and Emmanuel Macron have launched a fresh defamation lawsuit against American influencer Candace Owens in the United States, accusing her of orchestrating an “international humiliation campaign” by spreading and exploiting the false claim that the French first lady is a transgender person.
The suit, filed by the presidential couple in a federal court in Tennessee on November 4, follows a ruling in late October that limited the scope of their earlier complaint lodged in Delaware in summer 2025.
New Filing Targets Owens in Her Home State
The previous judge determined that Owens could not be held personally liable because the statute of limitations had expired, but allowed proceedings to continue against her companies. The new complaint targets her directly in her state of residence.
“The Macrons have indeed filed a new complaint against me,” Owens wrote Monday on X.
Accusations of Profiting From Falsehoods
In the new proceedings, the presidential couple argues that Owens “used this false information to promote her independent platform, gain notoriety and make money.”
Brigitte and Emmanuel Macron accuse her of having “persisted” since the initial summer 2025 complaint and of having “amplified her lies” about them. “This is not a search for truth, but a search for notoriety,” the complaint states, listing some 88 instances across more than 400 pages.
“These lies have caused immense harm to the Macrons,” the legal document reads, describing an “international humiliation campaign.”
How the Rumor Spread
The false claim about Brigitte Macron has resurfaced regularly on French social media since her husband’s first election in 2017, but it flourished abroad—particularly in the United States—after the podcaster took it up in March 2024. It gained global reach from January 2025 through a video series titled “Becoming Brigitte.”
According to the conspiracy theory, widely relayed in France by networks mixing conspiracy theorists, COVID-skeptics and the far right, Brigitte Macron, born Trogneux, never existed—and her brother Jean-Michel allegedly assumed her identity after transitioning.
The presidential couple is turning to the US court “to establish the truth, prevent further harm and hold Ms. Owens accountable for her conduct,” according to the complaint.
