How US influencer Candace Owens turned a conspiracy theory about Brigitte Macron into a global story
French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife are suing US influencer Candace Owens over false claims that Brigitte Macron was born male. Politico traces how the theory travelled from corners of the French internet to a worldwide audience.
Brigitte Macron, wife of French President Emmanuel Macron, and the president himself have filed a lawsuit in the US state of Delaware against Candace Owens, an American far-right influencer and podcaster. The 250-page complaint accuses her of spreading "devastating lies", including the false claim that Brigitte Macron was born a man. The case, filed in July 2025, marked a new stage in the couple's fight against the conspiracy theory. It also shows how hard it is, even for some of the world's most powerful people, to stop disinformation spreading on social media.
From the French internet to a global audience
The theory emerged in France in 2018. Its originator, Natacha Rey, who had lost her job at a small company and turned to her own "investigation", claimed that the first lady was in fact her brother, Jean-Michel Trogneux. Trogneux has been photographed beside his sister at Emmanuel Macron's inauguration ceremonies in 2017 and 2022. Journalist Xavier Poussard, who worked for the far-right publication "Faits et Documents", added to her suspicions in articles in 2021. The story reached a wider audience on 10 December 2021, when Rey appeared on a four-hour YouTube broadcast hosted by self-described medium Amandine Roy. The video reached 500,000 views within days, and the hashtag #JeanMichelTrogneux entered Twitter's top 10 trends.
Owens's role
On 20 January 2025, Poussard travelled to Nashville, Tennessee, to meet Owens. About three weeks later he released the self-published book "Becoming Brigitte", "presented" by Owens. At the same time she published a series of eight videos on her YouTube channel, which have since passed 30 million views. Poussard said the book has sold between 50,000 and 100,000 copies.
The Macrons' response
Brigitte Macron filed a first defamation complaint in January 2022, together with her brother, against Rey and Roy. French authorities have also brought cyberharassment proceedings. Supporters of the theory, however, treat the couple's legal action as proof that they have something to hide. Poussard and others who spread the theory describe this as the Streisand effect, in which attempts to counter false information draw even more attention to it.
