The conservative influencer Candace Owens won’t stop spreading transphobic fake news about Brigitte Macron. Now she is being sued

Candace Owens hit back after being sued

Warning: views expressed by the contreoversial subject of this report may be considered offensive

Notoriety used to be undesirable. These days it is eagerly embraced as catapult to international fame. This is the Candace Owens trajectory and today it reached a new inflection point, when French president Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte Macron, filed a defamation lawsuit against Ms Owens in the United States. The conservative influencer and political commentator was sued for allegedly waging a “campaign of global humiliation” by repeatedly spreading speculative claims, most notably that the Mrs Macron was born a biological male. For over a year, Ms Owens eagerly spread offensive claims about the French first lady on her podcast and social media platforms, no doubt reaching a global audience. She has mainly propagated the fabricated narrative that Mrs Macron was born male through her bully pulpit, the podcast Becoming Brigitte—dubbed “an investigative series”—that later also became a book of the same name, “presented by” her.

It has been a prolonged attack, begining from 24 March 2024, when she stated with conviction in spades on X that she would “stake [her] entire professional reputation on the fact that Brigitte Macron is in fact a man.” (Ironically, her career at the time as a journalist with The Daily Wire came to an end when she was fired for a series of comments widely regarded as antisemitic, as well as ongoing tensions with founder and co-host Ben Shapiro.) In June of that year, she launched her independent podcast Candace, where she continued to push the allegations about her French targets. In December, the Macrons sent their first demand for a retraction, but it was met with a wall. Ms Owens continued her unveiled attacks and in February this year, launched her eight-part podcast series, Becoming Brigitte, which heavily featured these and other conspiracy theories about the Macrons. Early this month, she was sent a final demand for retraction, and again it was ignored. There is remarkable tenacity in her efforts and undeniably a maliciousness to her allegations. The simmering spite finally boiled over.

The YouTube podcast that became a book

Soon after she received the lawsuit papers, Ms Owens went online to hit back. On an episode of Candace broadcast just hours ago, she basically challenged the Macrons to bring it on, describing receiving lawsuits as “my morning routine. It is so effortless”. She even depicted her current legal challenge as “entertainment”, showing a clip of Russel Crowe in 2000’s Gladiator, saying to a roaring crowd in the coliseum: “Are you not entertained? Is this not why you are here?”, while she mimicked his open arms as a taunting gesture. She did not credit the film, only stating that it was “one of my favourite movies.” That she would choose Mr Crowe-as-prizefighter to speak for her is unsurprising since it reflected her preference for what she calls “a manly man”. But whoever she chose to echo her incendiary message, it was the sheer audacity of her defiance that was startling. It is doubtful the actor would be amused.

In the 52-minute podcast, she did not hold back, opening with an assault: “you are officially a very goofy man, Brigitte. I’ve to give it to you: you definitely got balls”. She showed no qualms about easing in with the finesse of a sledgehammer. She described the lawsuit as an “obvious and desperate public relations strategy” on the part of the Macrons, who wanted to smear her character and bully her into silence, without first noting that if she could be pushed into a vacation from verbiage, she would have responded to the Macrons’ prior requests for retraction. In fact, she unequivocally stated that she is “not shutting up” and has no inclination to retract her still-bogus claims about Brigitte Macron’s gender. She emphasized that she will continue to express her First Amendment rights, as if it is a breastplate that is indestructible. In defending her provocation, she stated that she repeatedly requested an interview with Mrs Macron, implying that the lawsuit is a retaliatory measure rather than a legitimate response to her “investigative journalism”.

In the 52-minute podcast, she did not hold back, opening with an assault: “you are officially a very goofy man, Brigitte. I’ve to give it to you: you definitely got balls”

While Candace Owens described her Becoming Brigitte podcast as an “investigative series”, and enthusiastically labelled herself an “independent investigative journalist”, as is typical of political agitators, such as Laura Loomer, her work on the self-given topic, as described in the context, does not align with the widely accepted standards of investigative journalism. She studied journalism at the University of Rhode Island, but left before graduating—a detail that perhaps explains the disinformation masquerading as journalistic fervor that she would later adopt. In 2017, she gained prominence as the communications director for Turning Point USA, a conservative advocacy group, where she held the role until 2019. A year before she left, she co-founded the Blexit Foundation, which aimed to encourage Black Americans to leave the Democratic Party. In 2021, she joined The Daily Wire (where she debuted Candace), but, as we noted earlier, she was dismissed in 2024. It is clear she has not benefited from the discipline of a proper newsroom.

One unexpected point in her professional ascent was an internship at American Vogue. It reportedly took place in 2012, after she left university without a degree. Ms Owens has not actively shared her experience at the fashion bible, as if it might dent her credibility as a serious journalist. Most mentions of her Vogue days are terse biographical notes, often simply stating that she “worked as an intern for Vogue magazine in New York” or “completed an internship at Vogue”. However, in a 2019 interview with British Tatler, she did reluctantly offer that it was “kinda boring, not cerebral enough for me.” She added that the work “was never going to pay off my student loans”, and left to take a presumably better paying post at a private equity firm. There was no mention of the reputationally-significant culture at Vogue or if she had come face to face with the formidable editor-in-chief. And if she did, whether she survived the encounter.

The first episode of Becoming Brigitte

The starkness is that Candace Owens has pivoted so dramatically in her career from fashion to conservative political commentary that her time at Vogue cannot be a central talking point for her, unlike her political activism or more recent controversies involving first ladies not of her own country, a blatant contradiction of the Trumpian policy of America First. Fashion, compared to politics, is as lightweight as Swiss voile, or as she asserted, “not cerebral enough”. This perceived intellectual thinness in the fashion industry would, for her, necessarily render her past association with it not merely inconsequential, but fundamentally contradictory to her current brand. Most girls granted a Vogue internship would have been thrilled and keen to regale anyone willing to listen with tales of the cyclonic energy of an editorial department. But, for someone who now positions herself as a piercing, unyielding voice in political discourse, exposing what she views as hidden truths and challenging societal norms, a background in a field often characterized by aesthetics, trends, and commercialism would necessarily be downplayed.

Yet, attempts to present herself as a fashionably-aware political commentator are ever present. Ms Owens does not have a defining look. Her style is just like her source material: not first-hand. She is partial to anything that allows her to make a statement, even if it is not exactly on-trend—hers usually at the lower end of a trickle-down craze or gleaned from TikTok minutes before she goes to bed. When she was a host with The Daily Wire, she tended to choose from a bewildering array of looks, sometimes over-designed, sometimes over-decorated, as if to mimic Rihanna on not quite an exceptional day. For her own Candace podcast, it is calculated traditionalism as she picks blousy tops that enhance her femininity for a “manly” audience—possibly to sway the un-swayable—or clothes that allow for expressive hand gestures to exaggerate her points. Either way, she did not appear to have learned anything at Vogue, which suggests that she likely did not cut her teeth in the editorial office. Without that history hindrance, she is better at creating an unyielding MAGA femininity—a visual performance that conspicuously contradicts the very abrasive attitude she embodies.

Posing in a promotional video for her debut at The Daily Wire four years ago

By contrast, Brigitte Macron does not need to wear her femininity as a protective, even performative, shield, or on her Louis Vuitton sleeves. She is not merely a first lady, she is an understated yet globally commanding presence of sharp fashion. Her wardrobe, usually featuring LV’s quirky tailoring, ultra-skinny trousers (sometimes jeans), and surprisingly abbreviated hemlines, is a confident statement that belies her 71 years of age. With LV’s long-serving Nicolas Ghesquière, she has forged a silhouette that is undeniably hers. She wears her body and her unique position with an unapologetic ease that broadcasts liberation from the very prescriptive, unflattering molds Ms Owens fiercely champions. Mrs Macron is not seeking approval through predictable conventionality; she is simply being, and doing so with a natural, enviable, celebrated flair.

This is where Candace Owens’s carefully pieced-together world of binaries and manufactured outrage (her ‘White Lives Matter’ T-shirt worn at the Yeezy Paris show in 2022!) seems to buckle. If her brand of femininity requires strict adherence to a rigid or prudish, even meretricious aesthetic, how does one account for a woman of Mrs Macron’s age and stature, who not only defies these unwritten rules, but is appreciated for the disregard globally, revealing a profound insecurity within Ms Owens’s own lack of style? The answer, for the indefatigable podcaster, appears to be radical invalidation: if you cannot conform, you must be a fabrication, a hoax, a cheap construct. The leap from fashion critique to the monstrous accusation of being born a man becomes less about the “truth” and more about the desperate need to discredit a living, breathing challenge to her tightly-woven ideology. Jealousy, when it rears its head, can be ugly indeed—and in this case, simply and frighteningly deforming.

Screen shots: candaceowens/YouTube