Macrons file new Tennessee lawsuit against Candace Owens over gender claims

Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron have spent more than a year trying to pull a US podcaster into an American courtroom over the same false claim about the French first lady’s gender.

For most of that time, the case has been snagged on where, not what.

Now the fight has moved to Candace Owens’ own backyard. On November 4, the French president and his wife filed a new complaint in the US District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee.

The complaint runs more than 400 pages and lists 88 counts of defamation, false light, and defamation by implication.

The Tennessee venue is not an accident. Delaware Superior Court Judge Sheldon K. Rennie dismissed Owens personally from the Macrons’ original 2025 suit on October 27, ruling the Delaware court had no personal jurisdiction over her because she lives in Nashville. Claims against her companies, Candace Owens LLC and GeorgeTom Inc., remain pending there.

The Brigitte claim at the heart of the case

The complaint centers on Owens’ “Becoming Brigitte” podcast series and related posts on X in which she repeatedly claimed Brigitte Macron was born male. According to The Christian Post, the filing traces the campaign to a March 2024 declaration by Owens that she “would stake [her] entire professional reputation on the fact that Brigitte Macron… is in fact a man.”

The Macrons’ lawyers describe the statements as “outlandish, defamatory, and far-fetched fictions.”

Merchandise and donations

The sharpest new allegation is commercial. The Macrons’ lawyers write that Owens “continued to use her podcast to expand her lies about the Macrons, sell merchandise making fun of the Macrons, and collect donations based on her ‘reporting’ on the Macrons.”

LGBTQ Nation reported that the merchandise includes T-shirts carrying a fake Time magazine “Man of the Year” cover featuring Brigitte Macron.

Owens pushes back on X

Owens addressed the new case on X on Monday.

“The Macrons have indeed filed a NEW set of claims against me. 88 in total, and this time, they want justice over my Brigitte-Doll,” she wrote, referring to a prop doll she has used on her podcast. She has not retracted the underlying claims about Brigitte Macron.

The Macrons are asking for actual, presumed, and punitive damages, an injunction barring Owens from republishing statements a judge finds defamatory, and a jury trial.

This article is made and published by Jens Asbjørn Bogen, who may have used AI in the preparation