French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron filed a defamation lawsuit against podcast host Candace Owens on Wednesday for claims she peddled that France’s first lady was born a man.
The 22-count complaint was filed in Delaware Superior Court. It seeks an unspecified amount of damages from Owens, who broadcast an eight-part series spreading a host of allegations about the Macrons. Included in that were allegations that Brigitte Macron was born a man, stole another person’s identity and transitioned to a woman. There is zero evidence of that.
The Macrons demanded she retract the comments on three occasions, and she refused.
“These claims are demonstrably false, and Owens knew they were false when she published them,” the lawsuit states. “Yet, she published them anyway. And the reason is clear: it is not the pursuit of truth, but the pursuit of fame.”
Emmanuel Macron and Brigitte Macron said in a statement that they decided to file their lawsuit after Owens doubled down on the falsehoods despite their lawyers’ retraction requests.
“Ms. Owens’ campaign of defamation was plainly designed to harass and cause pain to us and our families and to garner attention and notoriety,” they said. “We gave her every opportunity to back away from these claims, but she refused. It is our earnest hope that this lawsuit will set the record straight and end this campaign of defamation once and for all.”
“These lies have caused tremendous damage to the Macrons,” the suit states. Owens and her entities, it continues, have “subjected the Macrons to a campaign of global humiliation, turning their lives into fodder for profit-driven lies. 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 result is relentless bullying on a worldwide scale.”
In response to the lawsuit, a spokesperson for Owens said:
“Candace Owens is not shutting up. This is a foreign government attacking the First Amendment rights of an American independent journalist. Candace repeatedly requested an interview with Brigitte Macron. Instead of offering a comment, Brigitte is resorting to trying to bully a reporter into submission. In France, politicians can bully journalists, but this is not France. It’s America.”
Free speech doesn’t mean you can defame someone. Is it defamation to say someone was born a man when they weren’t?
According Cornell law School, Defamation is a statement that injures a third party’s reputation. The tort of defamation includes both libel (written statements) and slander (spoken statements). State common law and statutory law governs defamation actions, and each state varies in their standards for defamation and potential damages. Defamation is a complex area of law as the lines between stating an opinion versus a fact can be vague, and defamation tests the limits of the first amendment freedoms of speech and press.
They likely have evidence that these statements diminished Mr. Macron and made her the subject of mockery. They say this about Michelle Obama all the time also, with no evidence. It is hard for prominent people like the French President to win a defamation suit. There are different rules for the famous people.
Maybe maybe not. Who cares anyway???
Owens is a raging anti-Semite and certifiable nut-job who pushed seditious language towards military personnel by telling them to “get dishonorably discharged” if you don’t like the orders you’re given.
Document please!
Use that new fangled invention called the interwebs.
I guess we’ll find out the truth then, won’t we?
To prove libel they would theoretically need to prove she is a woman, since they are the claimants. The birth certificate along with genetic testing by an independent lab, would be part of the evidence. Suing? That sounds fishy!!!
There is no evidence Brigitte is a woman! If you followed this situation, you would know that they have resisted attempts to release any records for years. Most French birth records are publicly available. Candace is not the only person saying this, it has been a topic a long time in France. Since Macron wants to create WW3, why believe… Read more »
The Macrons are Globalists. Globalists like those who are gender dysphoric. Why are they so peeved about this??
Defamation of this sort isn’t protected from civil suits. The First Amendment only protects speech from censorship — and specifically government censorship.