It began as an internet rumour, but it has now entered the courts. French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte Macron, are suing American political commentator Candace Owens over her repeated claims that France’s First Lady is, in fact, a man.
The Macrons have described the allegations as “false and devastating lies.” Owens, meanwhile, has doubled down, saying she is prepared to “stake [her] entire professional reputation” on the assertion that Brigitte Macron was not born female. The dispute is now the subject of a defamation lawsuit filed in the United States — and could become one of the most closely watched legal battles at the intersection of politics, media, and online influence.
The Allegations
Owens first made her claim in March 2023, telling her millions of online followers:
“I would stake my entire professional reputation on the fact that Brigitte Macron is in fact a man.”
She further alleged that Brigitte Macron’s true identity was her older brother, Jean-Michel Trogneux, now 80, who still resides in Amiens, the family’s hometown.
Owens expanded on these claims in an eight-part YouTube series titled Becoming Brigitte, which she released in early 2024. In it, she repeated her belief that the French First Lady is transgender, and tied the allegation to wider conspiracies: that the Macrons were engaged in incest, that Emmanuel Macron’s political rise was orchestrated by a CIA “mind control program,” and that the couple had engaged in forgery and fraud to cover up the truth.
The Macrons’ lawsuit, however, described these claims as “outlandish, defamatory, and far-fetched.”
The Lawsuit
In July 2024, the Macrons filed a 218-page defamation suit in Delaware, where Owens’s company, Candace Owens LLC, is registered. They are seeking a jury trial and punitive damages.
The complaint argues that Owens acted “maliciously, willfully, wantonly, with common law malice, with actual malice, with a conscious, reckless, and willful indifference to President and Mrs. Macron’s rights, and with a desire to cause injury.”
“As a direct and proximate result of Defendants’ false Statements, President and Mrs. Macron have suffered substantial economic damages, including, among other things, loss of future business opportunities… [and] substantial reputational damage.”
The Macrons claim that attempts were made to ask Owens to retract her statements. Instead, they allege, she “retaliated” by producing more content repeating the allegations.
Brigitte Macron’s Response
For Brigitte Macron, the case is deeply personal. Her lawyer Tom Clare told the BBC:
“It is incredibly upsetting to think that you have to go and subject yourself, to put this type of proof forward. But she’s willing to do it. She is firmly resolved to do what it takes to set the record straight.”
He added that the Macrons intend to present “scientific evidence” of Brigitte’s sex at birth, as well as family photographs, a birth announcement from April 1953, and even images of her during pregnancy.
Brigitte Macron, now 72, was born Brigitte Trogneux in Amiens. She worked as a teacher, was married once before, and has three children from her first marriage.
The decision to publicly produce intimate personal records highlights the extraordinary pressure placed on public figures in the digital age, where private lives can become the subject of global speculation.
Owens’s Perspective
Candace Owens, 36, is no stranger to controversy. A prominent conservative commentator with millions of followers across YouTube, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter), she is known for her outspoken views on race, gender, vaccines, and American politics.
While critics have described her comments as inflammatory, Owens maintains that she is unafraid to challenge mainstream narratives. In 2023, she remarked:
“I realised that liberals were actually the racists, that liberals were actually the trolls.”
Her stance on Brigitte Macron has been consistent. She continues to argue, through her platforms, that her claims are justified and refuses to retract them. Her legal team has filed a motion to dismiss the Macrons’ lawsuit, arguing that it should not proceed.
A Larger Debate
The case goes beyond the question of one woman’s identity. It touches on the broader challenges of the digital age: how misinformation spreads, how reputations are defended, and how free speech is balanced against defamation.
For the Macrons, the issue is reputational harm. As their legal filing stated:
“Defendants published the Statements maliciously… with a desire to cause injury to President and Mrs. Macron.”
For Owens, the issue is freedom of expression, and her role as a political commentator willing to question those in power.
A Philosophical Reflection
At a deeper level, this case illustrates the fragility of truth in the digital age. In earlier centuries, truth was tied to institutions — courts, churches, newspapers, universities. Today, truth is contested in real-time, in the unregulated marketplace of social media, where the loudest voice can often overpower the most verifiable fact.
The fact that Brigitte Macron, a former schoolteacher and now France’s First Lady, must contemplate providing medical evidence to prove her womanhood reveals something unsettling: in the age of viral rumours, even self-evident truths are no longer safe from doubt.
The philosopher Hannah Arendt once wrote that totalitarianism begins not by convincing people of lies, but by making them doubt whether truth even exists. In that sense, the Macron–Owens trial is not only about personal honour or political credibility. It is about whether truth can still be established in a world where narratives are infinitely multiplied, and where every fact can be contested by a louder counter-claim.
It is, in short, a trial about the survival of truth itself.
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