Macrons File New U.S. Lawsuit Against Owens Over False Gender Claims

The couple lodged the complaint on Nov. 4 in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, where Owens lives, after a Delaware judge last month dismissed her personally from an earlier lawsuit. The filing runs to more than 400 pages and lists 88 counts, including defamation, false light and defamation by implication.

Owens has falsely claimed that Brigitte Macron, 73, was born a man. In March 2024 she said she would “stake [her] entire professional reputation on the fact that Brigitte Macron is in fact a man.” She later built an eight-part podcast series, “Becoming Brigitte,” around that unfounded allegation.

The Macrons argue that Owens “used this false statement to promote her independent platform, gain notoriety, and make money.”

They say she “unequivocally” doubled down after they sued her in Delaware on July 23, 2025.

“She has 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,” the complaint says.

The couple called her content “verifiably false and devastating lies,” while stressing that “there is nothing shameful or defamatory about being a man, being transgender, or being gay.” The statements are defamatory, they say, because they accuse the Macrons “of lying to France and to the world, for decades, about who Mrs. Macron is — and of committing crimes to conceal that supposed lie.”

“These claims are demonstrably false, and Owens knew they were false when she published them,” the filing says. It accuses her of subjecting them to “a campaign of global humiliation.”

Owens Confirms the Tennessee Case

Owens confirmed the new action on Monday, writing on X that the “Macrons have indeed filed a NEW set of claims against me.” She said the complaint contained 88 counts.

The Macrons are seeking damages, including punitive damages, legal costs, and a narrowly tailored injunction against the republication of any statement found to be defamatory. They have asked for a jury trial. The case is Macron v. Owens, No. 3:26-cv-01765.

Delaware Suit Narrowed Last Month

The new complaint follows a ruling at the end of October in the Delaware case, filed in the state’s Superior Court against Owens and two of her companies, Candace Owens LLC and GeorgeTom, Inc. Judge Sheldon K. Rennie dismissed Owens as an individual for lack of personal jurisdiction, after she argued that she should be sued in Tennessee. Proceedings against the companies were allowed to continue.

The Tennessee filing targets Owens personally in her home state and accuses her of launching a new season of “Becoming Brigitte” in September 2025, after the first lawsuit was filed.

False claims that Mrs. Macron was born a man have circulated in France since Emmanuel Macron’s first election in 2017. They spread more widely in the United States after Owens took them up in March 2024.

Evidence and Earlier French Proceedings

The Macrons’ lawyers have said they are prepared to present photographic and scientific evidence in the U.S. case. Tom Clare, who represents the couple, told the BBC in September 2025 that “expert testimony … will come out that will be scientific in nature,” and that they were prepared to show, “both generically and specifically,” that Owens’s claims were false. He said photographs of Mrs. Macron’s pregnancy would also be presented, and that she was prepared to meet that burden.

Their earlier Delaware complaint included Mrs. Macron’s April 13, 1953, birth announcement in Amiens, identifying Brigitte Trogneux as the “little sister” of five siblings, including her brother Jean-Michel; a childhood family photograph; a photograph from her first wedding in 1974; and images of Jean-Michel Trogneux appearing with her at Macron’s 2017 and 2022 inaugurations.

Brigitte Macron has also gone to court in France over the same false claim. In September 2024, two women were convicted after posting a December 2021 YouTube video alleging that she had once been a man named Jean-Michel Trogneux, who is in fact her brother. An appellate court overturned that judgment on July 10, 2025, on grounds other than the truth of the statements, and the case is before France’s Court of Cassation, according to the Macrons’ earlier U.S. complaint.

The couple say they have turned to the Tennessee court “to set the record straight, prevent further harm and hold Candace Owens accountable for her conduct.”

The lawsuit lands as Macron faces a turbulent period at home. Clash Report has previously reported on a new book’s claim that he has a secret Élysée escape plan if protesters storm the palace, and on his effort to reject claims of French decline as defense spending rises.