"Tremendously Grateful": Candace Owens Celebrates As Macron Lawsuit Faces Fresh Hurdle

Authored by Rachel Roberts via The Epoch Times,

A Delaware judge ruled that French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte, can continue their defamation lawsuit against the companies of American conservative podcaster Candace Owens, but not against Owens herself.

The Macrons sued Owens and two businesses associated with her in July 2025 over her podcast series alleging France's first lady is a male. They allege Owens amplified these claims, which first emerged in France, "to promote her independent platform, gain notoriety, and make money."

Superior Court Judge Sheldon Rennie ruled on Tuesday that his court did not have jurisdiction over Owens, who lives in Tennessee, but that the case against Candace Owens LLC and Georgetom Inc. may proceed because those businesses were registered in Delaware.

The decision means that Owens, who has a following of more than 7.7 million on X and more than 6 million on YouTube, will not be held personally liable if a judge ultimately finds in favor of the Macrons.

Rejecting the claims against Owens as an individual, Rennie said the Macrons failed to establish that she formed her businesses specifically to defame the couple.

Statute of Limitations

Rennie will consider whether to dismiss the lawsuit entirely after lawyers for both sides brief him on whether France's statute of limitations required the Macrons to sue within three months or one year of the alleged defamation.

A three-month deadline could lead to a complete dismissal because the Macrons waited longer to take action, unless the judge decides the alleged defamation is "aggravated," in which case the limitation period is extended to one year.

"We are pleased that the Court rejected Mrs. Owens' attempt to remove the case from Delaware, where her companies continue to publish and monetize her defamatory falsehoods," lawyers for the Macrons said in an emailed statement on Wednesday.

'Legal Overreach'

In an X post following the ruling, Owens said she was "tremendously grateful" to the Delaware courts and to the presiding Judge "for looking at this case objectively."

She called the case "one of the grossest, legal overreaches by a foreign government leader in human history - a sitting President's attempt to personally bankrupt a single podcaster from outside the nation in which he governs."

Owens released an eight-part series, titled Becoming Brigitte, in January 2025. Viewed tens of millions of times across YouTube and other platforms, the series examined the claim that Brigitte Macron was born Jean Michel Trogneux, which is the name of her brother, and that she and her brother are one and the same and that Jean-Michel Trogneux doesn't exist as a separate person.

The lawsuit, however, states that Trogneux lives in northern France and attended both of Emmanuel Macron's presidential inaugurations in 2017 and 2022.

It also accuses the podcaster of alleging that Macron and his wife are blood relatives - her series claimed they are uncle and nephew - and that the president was installed in office by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

'Campaign of Global Humiliation'

The Macrons argue that Owens embarked on a "campaign of global humiliation" that caused "substantial and irreparable damage" to their reputation by repeatedly discussing the theory and claiming that Brigitte Macron had stolen the first lady title.

In January, a Paris court found 10 people guilty of cyberbullying Brigitte Macron by spreading the rumor online that she is transgender.

One defendant was sentenced to six months in prison, and eight were given suspended sentences of between four and eight months. All 10 were ordered to attend awareness training on cyberbullying, which is a separate offense from other forms of harassment under French law.

The court pointed to "particularly degrading, insulting, and malicious" comments about 73-year-old Brigitte Macron, including allegations she is transgender and accusations of pedophile criminality targeted at the first lady, who met her 48-year-old husband when he was a 15-year-old schoolboy and she was his 39-year-old teacher.

The Macrons married in 2007, years after they met at the Jesuit high school in Amiens when she was a drama teacher and a married mother of three known as Brigitte Auzière, according to biographical accounts.

Lawyer Tom Clare, who is representing the couple in their defamation suit against Owens, told the BBC in September 2025 that Brigitte Macron was prepared to present scientific evidence to a court to prove she is a biological woman. He declined to provide further details on the nature of such evidence.