Macrons sue U.S. podcaster for defamation over claims France's first lady was born male

French President Emmanuel Macron and First Lady Brigitte Macron have filed a defamation lawsuit in the United States against right-wing American influencer and podcaster Candace Owens, accusing her of spreading "grotesque" falsehoods, as per media reports.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Delaware Superior Court, centers around Owens' explosive and widely circulated claim that Brigitte Macron, 72, is a transgender woman who was born male under the name Jean-Michel Trogneux - the actual name of her older brother.

“Ms. Owens has dissected their appearance, their marriage, their friends, their family, and their personal history - twisting it all into a grotesque narrative designed to inflame and degrade,” the Macrons said in the complaint, reports added. They allege that Owens’ actions have resulted in “relentless bullying on a worldwide scale,” all in a bid to promote her podcast and grow her “frenzied” following.

According to reports, the lawsuit zeroes in on Owens’ eight-part podcast series Becoming Brigitte, which has garnered over 2.3 million views on YouTube. The series and linked posts on social media platform X are accused of spreading “verifiably false and devastating lies,” including that Brigitte Macron had stolen someone else’s identity, undergone a gender transition, and that the Macrons are blood relatives involved in incest.

Owens, who commands a vast following online - over 6.9 million on X and 4.5 million YouTube subscribers - responded defiantly on her podcast Wednesday, dismissing the lawsuit as “littered with factual inaccuracies” and accusing the French presidential couple of launching “an obvious and desperate public relations strategy” to smear her character. She also claimed to be unaware of the lawsuit’s imminent filing, though both sides’ lawyers had been in talks since January.

A spokesperson for Owens went further, accusing the French government of trying to "bully" an American journalist for exercising her First Amendment rights. "This is a foreign government attacking the First Amendment rights of an American independent journalist," the spokesperson said, as per reports.

The Macrons' lawyers countered in a joint statement, saying that they had made multiple attempts to resolve the issue privately.

Defamation lawsuits by heads of state are in U.S. courts, and the Macros face a high bar: under American law, public figures must prove "actual malice" - that the statements were knowingly false or made with reckless disregard for the truth.

The case joins a string of high-profile defamation battles involving political figures. Former U.S. President Donald Trump recently filed a $10 billion lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and previously reached a $15 million settlement with ABC News over inaccurate reporting about a civil case verdict.

The rumours about Brigitte Macron’s gender first surfaced in 2021 and have since permeated conservative media circles, including discussions on shows hosted by Tucker Carlson and Joe Rogan.

In September, Brigitte Macron won a related defamation case in France against two women, including a self-proclaimed psychic. However, that ruling was overturned earlier this month, and she has since appealed to the country’s highest court, the reports added.