Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron sue Candace Owens for defamation again
88-count complaint filed in Nashville after Delaware court could not reach her personally, filing alleges she sells merchandise and collects donations on the claims
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France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, and his wife, Brigitte Macron, on the steps of the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, on 1 October 2026. Photograph: Benjamin Vodant/Hans Lucas/AFP/Getty Images
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US conservative political commentator Candace Owens attends a session at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum in St Petersburg, Russia, on 4 June 2026. Photograph: Anastasia Barashkova/Reuters
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Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron have filed a new defamation lawsuit against Candace Owens in Nashville, Tennessee. The complaint, filed on 4 November in the city where Owens lives, runs to 88 counts of defamation, false light and defamation by implication, and names Owens personally.
The Macrons first sued Owens and her media companies in Delaware in July 2025, describing her claims as 'verifiably false and devastating lies' repeated on her podcast and on X. The claims cited there included that Brigitte Macron, 73, was born a man named Jean-Michel Trogneux — in fact her older brother — and had committed identity theft to hide a gender transition; that Emmanuel Macron was elected as part of a CIA mind-control programme; and that the couple are blood relatives committing incest.
A judge limited the Delaware claim to Owens's companies registered in the state, after she successfully argued that the court had no jurisdiction over her personally because she did not live there. That case is still pending. 'Mrs Owens was adamant that Tennessee is where this case belongs because it's where she lives,' a representative of the Macrons' legal team said. 'With this filing, we are giving her exactly what she has repeatedly demanded.'
The new complaint alleges Owens has 'unequivocally doubled down' since the first suit, publishing an eight-part podcast series, Becoming Brigitte, with accompanying posts on X. It alleges a financial motive — that she has used the podcast to sell merchandise mocking the Macrons and collect donations based on her 'reporting' on them. The filing singles out the 'Brigitte doll' Owens holds in her videos, described as 'a grotesque, alien-like figure' reminiscent of the namesake character in ET, which the lawsuit contends caricatures Mrs Macron's body and confirms the campaign is driven by animus toward her perceived gender identity, gender and sexuality.
The Macrons describe 'relentless bullying on a worldwide scale' and say Owens has subjected them to 'a campaign of global humiliation, turning their lives into fodder for profit-driven lies'. The complaint says she has dissected the couple's appearance, marriage, friends, family and personal history, and puts her following in the millions. In June, Owens attended a session at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum.
The case against her companies continues in Delaware. The case against her personally has now been filed in Tennessee — the state she insisted was where it belonged.