Emmanuel Macron says he is suing US influencer to 'defend his honour' over ludicrous claims wife Brigitte was born a man - as he aims 'free speech' dig at Trump

DAILYMAIL.COM ^ | 21 August 2025 | PERKIN AMALARAJ

[dennisw]

French president Emmanuel Macron has claimed the lawsuit he and his wife have filed against right-wing American influencer Candace Owens was put forward to 'defend his honour.'

Since last year, 36-year-old Owens has espoused a crackpot theory to her four million YouTube subscribers that Macron's 72-year-old wife Brigitte was born a man.

Owens launched a podcast series called Becoming Brigitte, in which she delves into the conspiracy. She claims that Brigitte was born under the name 'Jean-Michel Trogneux.'

Her actions led Macron and his wife to file a lawsuit in the US against Owens in July, claiming that they had 'suffered substantial reputational damage' and spent 'considerable sums of money to correct the public record.'

Macron told Paris Match that while he was warned that taking legal action against Owens may result in the '"Streisand effect", drawing even more attention to these lies... It grew so big in the United States that we had to respond.

'It is a matter of upholding the truth. It’s about defending my honour. Because this is nonsense.'

He also hit out at the Trump administration, dismissing arguments that his lawsuits was an impingement on free speech.

Referring to the Trump administration's decision to ban some mainstream outlets, he said: 'It is not freedom of speech to want to prevent the truth from being restored. Those who talk about this supposed freedom of speech are the people who ban journalists from the Oval Office. I don’t accept that.'

Instead, he claims, Owens 'knew very well that she was using false news to cause damage, in the service of an ideology and with established connections with the far Right.'

[dfwgator]

[mac_truck]

No need for DNA testing...just provide a high school yearbook photo, or a wedding photo from your first marriage, or a photo with you and your young children, etc.

[Socon-Econ]

OK, Owens is nutty, but why doesn’t Macron’s alleged wife prove Owens wrong by submitting a DNA test?

[philman_36]

OK, Owens is nutty...

Leading a comment with character assassination is never a good option...IMO.

[nitzy]

Would you like a forced whiz quiz or DNA test to prive your sex publicly?

That maybe one of the most ignorant things I have ever heard.

Nobody would be "forcing" anyone to do anything. If someone accused me of ANYTHING and the accusation upset me so much that I wanted to sue and I could easily disprove the accusation by doing something as simple as taking a test....I would be driving at 90 MPH to the nearest testing facility to disprove the accusation as quickly as I could.

If someone accused you of being at a gay strip club last Saturday but you had video footage proving you were at home...would they be "forcing" you to release video footage from your home to prove you don't go to gay night clubs? Or would you happily release the footage to prove your accusers are liars?

[NorthMountain]

Even in a Free Speech Nation, you can sue ... and win ... when someone speaks or publishes false defamatory assertions about you.

The person speaking or publishing the defamatory assertions has the burden of proving them true.

The person supposedly defamed has the burden of proving that he has been damaged by the defamation.

[dforest]

Excellent point. Leftists are all for that.

[Worldtraveler once upon a time]

--- "Just have her take a DNA test at a neutral medical center location and make the results visible to all. Easy way to win your case."

Sensible. Obvious. Quick and easy. Verifiable results would....

[dforest]

Why yes the rich can fake anything they want.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mtz1AC_CzTQ

[moviefan8]

Macron is right about Trump and free speech. Trump has sued people too.

[nagant]

The person speaking or publishing the defamatory assertions has the burden of proving them true.
~~~~~

My understanding is the exact opposite. Not only must the complainant prove that the defendant’s statement was false, he must also prove that the defendant knew that the statement was false, but made the statement anyway in order to damage the complainant.

Proving what’s inside of a person’s head is hard to do.

.....Innocent until proven guilty.

[Chickensoup]

There are so many other better hills to die on.

[Gnome1949]

Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Pre-trial discovery in this case will be enjoyable everywhere but within the Macron household. If Macron IS married to a biological male, why is the claim defamatory in today’s world? Today, lots of well-known men are known to be married to men.

[dennisw]

I have watched one episode of Candace vs. The Macrons. I know that her theme is that pre-trial Discovery will be a killer for the Macrons. Candace would love to go to a USA defamation trial with them, then go to discovery depositions.

[fr_freak]

These accusations from Candace seem crazy. Yeah I know she has some thin evidence to support her contention that Macron’s wife was born a man.

So far, no one has brought any conclusive evidence forward to dispute Owens's theory, kind of like how nobody can produce pictures of Michelle Obama pregnant.

If someone accused me of having been born a woman or some such thing, I could disprove it in five minutes with photos and the like. You might be thinking "Why should the President of France dignify a Youtuber by producing something like that?" Well, I would imagine it would be less effort (and less of a dignification) than a formal lawsuit.

And Macron seems quite clearly to be a faggot to anyone with functioning gaydar, just as Obama does, so believing that his grossly age inappropriate mannish-looking wife is really a man just isn't that much of a stretch.

[fr_freak]

If Candace Owen insists on saying that she is not actually a Trans male, she is then obligated to “prove it” to the world. See how ridiculous and wastefully negative that sounds?

Candace isn't the wife of a world leader who has participated in the globalist takedown of his own country, and I would imagine that if anyone did challenge her status as a woman, she could simply hold up one of her children, or point to the pregnancy pictures she clearly displayed on her podcast.

...she does bear a somewhat “boyish” look to her face.

Ha. No she doesn't - she's cute as a button.

[Bob434]

Not in all situations, there are limits to free speech, but the burden to restrict is very high. That is why the judges ruled in favor of Westboro. They didn’t have to prove what they said was true, I fact what they said was false, but they were allowed to say it per the courts. And what they said was very damaging to the soldiers and grieving families.

However, on the flip side, there are the cases like the catholic kid who sued CBS NBC etc and won because they said false things about the kid. But maybe he presented facts that proved unfair malice or whatever.

A lot of folks are going for lawsuits claiming they have been damaged lately. We will see how the courts decide. Musk has one pending I believe, Trump has had some I believe? Some other Congress folks are suing too. Gonna be interesting.

[cgbg]

“The president’s allies fired back. They claimed their opponent was an atheist bent on seizing Bibles from the homes of American Christians, and they whispered tales of animal sacrifices and sexual transgressions by the president’s adversary.”

Name “the President” in the quotation.

.....

Ref: https://teachingamericanhistory.org/blog/sedition-act-of-1798/

[Bob434]

Well that all depends on what the definition of a woman is. Jentji brown seems very confused about how to identify a woman

[Danie_2023]

“”Joan Rivers said Michelle Obama was a trans and she was dead less than 2 months later.””

And notice... there were no lawsuits or even any refutations after Rivers’ claim. Dead silence, not even crickets. Could be that silence was even worse... considering the end result.

Joan was apparently very naive re: other matters. She trusted the “doctors” that put her under anesthesia two months later. Big mistake.