French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte initiated defamation proceedings in the United States on Wednesday against American influencer Candace Owens for having relayed and widely exploited in videos the false information according to which Brigitte Macron was “born a man”.
This infox flourished abroad, particularly in the United States after far-right blogger Candace Owens seized on it in March 2024, giving it worldwide resonance since January 2025 through a series of videos entitled “Becoming Brigitte”.
Delaware complaint
The presidential couple filed a defamation complaint Wednesday in a Delaware court (east), demanding an “exemplary” amount of damages to be determined during a trial.
Their lawyers claim in the complaint that Candace Owens was fully aware of the falsity of these allegations and systematically rejected all requests for rectification. She allegedly persisted in her “smear campaign” to “gain notoriety and make money”, pointing out that she now has 6.9 million subscribers to her X account and 4.7 million on YouTube.
According to the infox at the origin of this affair, widely relayed in France by movements combining conspiracies, covid-sceptics or the extreme right, Brigitte Macron, born Trogneux, would never have existed, but her brother Jean-Michel would have taken this identity after changing sex.
Sentenced in France then released
Two women, Natacha Rey and Amandine Roy, who had widely disseminated it, were ordered in September by the French courts to pay several thousand euros in damages to Brigitte Macron and 5,000 to Jean-Michel Trogneux but they were acquitted on appeal on July 10.
Brigitte Macron and her brother appealed to the Court of Cassation against this decision.
