How did the conspiracy theorist influencer Candace Owens make the misinformation about Brigitte Macron a global phenomenon?

The American woman turned this conspiracy theory into a podcast with more than 30 million views. She is now at the center of an unprecedented legal battle brought by the Macron couple. By MARION SOLLETTY in Paris The American far-right influencer Candace Owens is being sued by the Macron couple for spreading "devastating lies." | Francis Chung/POLITICO. November 13, 2026 6:00 am CET This story is also available in English. Xavier Poussard did not come to Nashville empty-handed. When he arrived in the Tennessee capital on January 20, 2025, the journalist had in his hands what he would later describe as "a gold mine" — the manuscript of his book, titled Becoming Brigitte, which promotes across 340 pages what is in fact a vast conspiracy theory: the false idea that Brigitte Macron, the wife of the president of the Republic, was born a man. Poussard was there to discuss it with Candace Owens. The American far-right influencer, a former Donald Trump supporter turned podcaster, had contacted him with the idea of turning his work into a global phenomenon. Owens was not new to the subject: she had already discussed it on her YouTube channel, which hosts one of the most-watched podcasts in the world, and had been struck by her audience's enthusiasm for the story, Xavier Poussard would tell POLITICO in an interview. She was now ready to take things to the next level. The duo was as improbable as it was complementary. Poussard — then rather uncomfortable in front of cameras, with an intellectual look tempered by thick plastic-framed glasses — had put all the details of the theory down on paper in a dense style, sometimes dizzying. Owens, seasoned in media appearances and massively followed on YouTube, had the community and the know-how needed to give the story a global dimension. It was she, Xavier Poussard relates, who suggested drawing inspiration from Michelle Obama's bestseller Becoming for the project's title and visual identity. Barely three weeks after his arrival, the French author published Becoming Brigitte, a self-published book "presented" by Candace Owens. At the same time, the influencer released a series of eight videos on her YouTube channel, which have now exceeded 30 million views. When asked by POLITICO, Xavier Poussard refused to reveal the exact number of sales, though he noted that the book sold between 50,000 and 100,000 copies — a figure he had never before made public. The story in question, however, has a major problem: it is false. Brigitte Macron and her husband, the president of the French Republic, decided to take the matter to court. In a 250-page complaint filed in the state of Delaware, they accuse Candace Owens of spreading "extravagant, defamatory and far-fetched" narratives coupled with "devastating lies, concerning [easily] verifiable facts, about the Macrons." The lawsuit filed in July 2025, which received extensive media coverage, marked a new stage in the presidential couple's fight against this conspiracy theory, which emerged in the shadows in France in 2018 before gaining a wider audience across the Atlantic through far-right media outlets. The story of the lawsuit against Owens and the proceedings in France reveals the trajectory of a successful conspiracy theory, from the depths of the French internet to YouTube channels with a global audience. It also tells of the limits of power in the age of social media, where even some of the most powerful people in the world struggle to stem the spread of fake news, where audience becomes profit and the attention economy a windfall for the most extreme theories. The birth of a conspiracy theory December 10, 2021. From her apartment in Angers, Amandine Roy, a medium and aspiring influencer, presents a special guest to her modest YouTube community. Nathalie Rey, 51, has already spent three years trying to uncover what she believes is a vast hoax involving the first lady of France. Amandine Roy, whose real name is Delphine Jegousse, presents herself as a "medium, whistleblower and journalist." She has bleached hair and wears large hoop earrings. Her activities are eclectic: fortune-telling consultations — including a five-session course called the "crystal skull workshop" — and what she calls "authentic information." From her improvised studio, she begins the interview while Nathalie Rey, connected remotely, seems to be struggling with her iPhone. Nathalie Rey is eager to publicize her research but does not want to show her face. She speaks with the camera off, under the pseudonym "Natacha." Only the icon of her profile picture, in which she wears sunglasses and a large black hat, appears on screen. Her thesis: the "official story" of Brigitte Macron's life is a lie. According to her, the first lady is none other than her brother, Jean-Michel Trogneux, who allegedly transitioned to become a woman — the man in question was nevertheless photographed alongside his sister at Emmanuel Macron's inauguration ceremonies in 2017 and 2022. The theory of the amateur investigator, as laid out in the video, rests mainly on Brigitte Macron's appearance. "The strangeness of her physique has bothered me from the start," she explains in the first few minutes. She also relies on hypotheses about the president's wife's family history, in which Nathalie Rey claims to have detected "numerous anomalies." Brigitte Macron wants to make her legal fight an example of her battle against harassment. | Oliver Contreras /AFP via Getty Images She began taking an interest in Brigitte Macron's life in 2018, shortly after her husband's first election as president. After losing her job at a small company, her growing doubts about the couple's official biography became her main occupation. A supporter of the Yellow Vest movement, Nathalie Rey harbors a deep distrust of political elites, a distrust only reinforced by her social isolation and the hours spent on the internet during the Covid pandemic, journalist Emmanuelle Anizon recounts in L'Affaire Madame (StudioFact, 2024). Nathalie Rey was particularly motivated, the journalist relates, by the conviction that the rich and powerful enjoy "impunity," even when it comes to the most horrible crimes. She thus closely followed the Jeffrey Epstein affair, the now-deceased financier connected to global elites and convicted of running a sexual predation network. For three years, Nathalie Rey conducted her small investigation. But the journalists she approached showed little interest in her findings. With one exception: Xavier Poussard. He had himself begun working on the subject for "Faits et Documents," a far-right publication then supported by Alain Soral, the polemicist repeatedly convicted for antisemitic and Holocaust-denying remarks. Xavier Poussard put Nathalie Rey's suspicions down on paper, adding his own research and a touch of storytelling. This resulted, in 2021, in a series of articles riddled with "what ifs" and question marks. In them, he develops the idea that Brigitte Macron's supposed identity is merely the tip of the iceberg. The theory of Nathalie Rey, amplified by Xavier Poussard, indeed claims that the media not only concealed the first lady's alleged past, but also what they consider the corruption of a minor — Emmanuel Macron's seduction by his future wife, when she was his high school teacher. The author describes the Macrons as a "perverse couple." His lurid writings at the time remained confined to a small far-right readership. It was Amandine Roy's YouTube video that, by reaching a wider audience, propelled the story to another dimension. During the four-hour broadcast, Nathalie Rey sharply attacks the "political caste" and the "manipulative, propagandist media." According to the two women, journalists are either complicit or forced into silence under threat. Within days, the video reached 500,000 views, pushing the hashtag #JeanMichelTrogneux into Twitter's top 10 trending topics. What began as the obsession of an isolated woman was becoming a viral phenomenon. Brigitte Macron filed an initial complaint in January 2022. | Henrique Campos/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images And it did not escape Brigitte Macron's attention. The Streisand Effect The first lady acted quickly. Less than a week after the video went viral, her lawyer announced her intention to file a complaint against those responsible for spreading the disinformation. A few weeks later, she was asked about the controversy on the set of TF1. "Of course, it's a lie," Brigitte Macron said at the time in an interview in which she also discussed her long-standing fight against cyberbullying. "I fear violence […] I fear hatred […] I fear this kind of permanent crescendo," she also declared, in a broader reference to the then very tense political climate. "I think we didn't protect ourselves enough from that and let far too much slide." The first lady, who declined our interview request for this article, speaks of her complaint as a matter of principle, in line with her commitments. For years she has spoken out in favor of stronger regulation of social media, particularly to combat cyberbullying. "If I do nothing when I've been fighting harassment for four years… I won't be credible," she also declared on RTL. But her move had collateral effects: the legal action gave ammunition to the conspiracy theory's supporters. They saw in the counterattack by the country's most powerful couple a confirmation that they had something to hide. Years later, a similar dynamic took hold with the lawsuit filed in the United States against Candace Owens, which is still only in the early stages of its judicial journey. "The engine of this affair is Brigitte Macron," declares Xavier Poussard. "She's a boomer who doesn't understand the Streisand effect." The Streisand effect refers to the phenomenon whereby attempts to counter false information end up drawing more attention to it. Mike Borowski, the host of an alternative talk show that has become one of the theory's main outlets in France, notes that this phenomenon has played out. "It's actually them who created the buzz," he explains in an interview with POLITICO. "I mean, Natacha Rey, Amandine Roy, myself, or all the others, Xavier [Poussard]… Without the interventions of Brigitte Macron and Emmanuel Macron, it would have been an internet affair." "Everything gets known" By the time Becoming Brigitte came out, the Macron couple had already been fighting this conspiracy theory for more than three years. The first defamation complaint was filed, in January 2022, by Brigitte Macron and her brother, Jean-Michel Trogneux, against Nathalie Rey and Amandine Roy, the two women behind the viral YouTube video. Emmanuel Macron described this disinformation campaign as one of the worst political experiences of his life. | Christian Hartmann/Pool/AFP via Getty Images The French authorities, for their part, initiated cyberbullying proceedings against people accused of spreading malicious claims about the first lady. Xavier Poussard, who lives in Italy, was questioned by police as part of this procedure, but to date he has not been placed under formal investigation or heard by a court. For the Macrons, the allegations are particularly sensitive. They touch on a delicate chapter of their personal history: the origins of their relationship. Emmanuel first met Brigitte when he was in high school, in Amiens. She was 24 years his senior and married at the time. The complaint filed by the Macrons against Owens recalls that it was during the drama class taught by the teacher that the two "formed a deep intellectual bond," the future president developing "strong feelings for his teacher." Their romantic relationship, which flourished in the years that followed despite Emmanuel Macron's departure from Amiens to study in Paris, tore their respective families apart and ended Brigitte Macron's first marriage to André-Louis Auzière, the father of her three children, who has since died. In an interview with Paris Match in 2024, the first lady's daughter, Tiphaine Auzière, described that period as "painful" for her family. Macron was a classmate of her sister, Laurence. "It wasn't yet the era of social media, but we were in a small provincial town. Everything gets known," she recounted. The Macrons have offered only a few carefully chosen details about this period of their lives. The conspiracy theory's adherents, whether acting in good faith or bad, took it upon themselves to fill in the gaps. They went so far as to analyze the smallest details of Brigitte Macron's youthful photos, from the shape of her ears to her resemblance to her brother. A central element of Poussard's book is a visual analysis carried out with a Chinese facial recognition tool, supposedly documenting the evolution of Brigitte Macron's physical features over time. "That's what characterizes conspiracy theories: out of nothing, they make something," declares the famous lawyer and politician Eric Dupond-Moretti, who was Emmanuel Macron's justice minister when these allegations began circulating. Tiphaine Auzière testified, during one of the trials held in France, about the impact these allegations had on her mother's well-being. "She is forced to pay attention to the outfits she wears, to her postures, because she knows her image can be misused," she said. Social media posts promoting the theory have made a habit of featuring close-ups of the first lady's body, speculating about Brigitte Macron's silhouette or the way she moves. "You can feel that they have been hurt individually, very deeply," says a politician close to the couple, who requested anonymity in order to speak freely on this sensitive subject. Freedom of expression In January 2026, the Paris criminal court convicted ten people, including Amandine Roy, of cyberbullying against Brigitte Macron after finding them guilty of spreading malicious claims about her gender and sexuality. The defendants received sentences ranging from awareness training to prison, mostly suspended. The Macrons accuse Owens of knowingly spreading false information in order to grow her audience and make money. | Olga Maltseva/AFP via Getty Images But the defamation proceedings brought against Amandine Roy and Nathalie Rey backfired on the presidential couple. After a favorable ruling at first instance, the court of appeal found that the two women had acted in good faith, despite the use of sources whose "neutrality and seriousness are questionable," and that their statements fell under freedom of expression. The judges also considered that accusing Brigitte Macron of having transitioned or of hiding her birth identity could not be considered defamation, according to the ruling consulted by POLITICO, insofar as being transgender is not in itself a culpable act. Moreover, even if Brigitte Macron had changed sex, concealing that transition would not be considered a culpable act, the judge argued, as it would fall under the right to privacy. The court acknowledged that the accusation of corruption of a minor against the first lady regarding Emmanuel Macron may have harmed her reputation. But here again, it invoked the principle of good faith. According to the ruling, the publicly available information about the early days of the Macrons' relationship constituted "a diverse and sufficient factual basis" to support the allegations made by Nathalie Rey (the court noting that the defendants "are not information professionals"). In their complaint filed in the United States, the Macrons' lawyers state that "the teacher-student relationship between Mrs. Macron and President Macron always remained within the bounds of the law." This ruling caused consternation in Macron's camp. "That's a rather expansive conception of freedom of expression," says Eric Dupond-Moretti. "Imagine people saying that you are a man, and those making these claims being declared innocent. Wouldn't that leave a bitter taste in your mouth?" Brigitte Macron and her brother, Jean-Michel Trogneux, filed an appeal before the Cour de cassation, France's highest court. The review on the merits, initially scheduled for the autumn, was postponed to next spring following Nathalie Rey's death from cancer in September 2026, according to a ruling consulted by POLITICO. Mike Borowski, the alternative talk-show host who had met her, describes her as "a small, rather frail lady, who transformed a bit when she talked about 'her' affair." On both sides of the Atlantic Candace Owens first presented the theory to her community on March 11, 2024, in an episode of her podcast, promising nothing less than "the greatest political scandal in the history of mankind." Her show aired just a few days after Emmanuel Macron spoke publicly about the affair for the first time. Asked on the occasion of International Women's Day on March 8, 2024, the president described this disinformation campaign as one of the worst political experiences of his life, generating new headlines on the subject. At the time, Candace Owens, once a leading figure of the MAGA movement, was being criticized by many American conservatives who accused her of spreading antisemitic stereotypes and baseless conspiracy theories. In 2023, YouTube demonetized several of her videos, finding that they violated its rules against hateful and demeaning content, including the prohibition on deliberately misgendering transgender people. Throughout the spring and early summer of 2024, Candace Owens, who declined to comment for this article, published several posts about the Macrons. But her interest took on a new dimension after watching the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics, according to Xavier Poussard. The ceremony and its banquet scene depicting the Greek god Dionysus in the likeness of Philippe Katerine, nude and painted entirely blue, shocked conservative religious circles, where the performance was interpreted as a parody of the Last Supper, Christ's final meal. After the event, Candace Owens, a devout Catholic, received numerous indignant messages from all over the world. She would later tell her audience that she saw in that scene one of many signs that "something very dark and demonic is happening" in France. Shortly after, she contacted Xavier Poussard. "She tells me: 'Listen, I'm getting piles of letters, piles of emails, stuff on social media,'" he relates to POLITICO. "And so people were saying to her: 'Can we buy the investigation into Brigitte? Is there something available in English?'" The two then decided to join forces. They first met in London, where the influencer had rented an apartment for the 2024 Christmas holidays (her husband, George Farmer, is a British businessman and conservative activist), then at the couple's home in Nashville in January. Xavier Poussard, who was writing his book at the time, kept her informed of his progress, sending her chapters as they were completed. He also told her many stories about the Macrons and their connections within the French elite, enough to feed her podcast. "She discovers there's a gold mine," he says. For his part, the Frenchman learned from Candace Owens about American-style content creation and its monetization. He says he was impressed by the efficiency of her small team, which works in premises set up on her property in Nashville. His book, which he calls a "publishing success," allowed him to pay off the loan on his house in Milan, where he lives. He now sells the book in four languages on his website. Xavier Poussard denies having been driven by ideological or financial motives. His motivation, he says, is journalistic: "The affair exists, and it's covered." While Poussard and Owens were refining their project in late 2024, the Macrons intensified their legal counterattack. In December, they sent the American a cease-and-desist letter demanding that she retract her previous statements. But that only encouraged her. "The funny thing is, if Emmanuel Macron hadn't sent me that threatening letter, we would have only done one episode," Candace Owens later declared on the podcast of Tim Dillon, another conservative. "It made me so angry… I thought: now we're really going to go all in." In their complaint filed in Delaware, the Macrons describe their multiple attempts to reach out to Owens to challenge the allegations. These would become so much ammunition turned against them in new publications, in which Owens presents herself as the victim and continues "to mock the Macrons' attempts to set the record straight," the document reads. Macron v. Owens. The Macrons accuse Owens of knowingly spreading false information in order to grow her audience and make money. "The clicks kept pouring in, so Owens kept going, seizing every opportunity to promote her scandalous claims," reads the defamation complaint filed in July 2025 by the presidential couple against Owens and her companies. The video series is part of the multifaceted business built by Candace Owens. In addition to advertising aired during episodes, the influencer offers premium subscriptions to her "Club Candace," merchandise, and paid public appearances. The AAE agency, which promotes Owens as a speaker, says her fees range from $50,000 to $100,000 for in-person events. "She builds an audience, she sells her merchandise. We live in a world where fame sells," explains Dan Nardello, whose investigations firm was hired by Clare Locke, the prestigious law firm retained by the Macrons, to document Owens's activities and investigate her motives. Dan Nardello, gray-bearded and bespectacled, is familiar with conspiracy theories. He worked on the lawsuit against the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who for years presented the deadly 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, which killed 26 people including 20 children, as a hoax. The man spoke with POLITICO in the bar of a discreet Parisian hotel. On the green velvet sofa next to him rests a copy of Regime Change, a book devoted to Trump's second term. The investigator points out that Candace Owens places about three ads in each video devoted to "Becoming Brigitte." According to an estimate by Fortune magazine, on which he relies, the influencer's podcast would generate between $2 and $10 million in annual revenue from sponsors alone. This figure could not be independently verified by POLITICO, and the earnings from exploiting the affair concerning the Macrons remain difficult to determine precisely. For the presidential couple, the decision to sue the conspiracy-mongering commentator in the US, with the costs and grueling process that entails, was presumably not an obvious one, notes Dan Nardello. "It's a matter of principle for them," he adds. "It takes courage to put yourself at the mercy of the American justice system like that. […] I'm sure that, politically, the advice was 'Don't do it,'" the investigator concludes. Candace Owens has stood by her claims and asked for the lawsuit to be dismissed. Last month, a Delaware judge narrowed the scope of the proceedings against her. According to the ruling, the Macrons can only sue Owens's companies, which are domiciled in the state, and not the influencer personally, who resides in Tennessee. Candace Owens welcomed the decision in a post on X. In it, she denounces "one of the most egregious legal abuses committed by a foreign leader in the history of mankind — the attempt by a sitting president to personally ruin a mere podcaster from abroad." She also accused the Macrons of engaging in "forum shopping," a practice of choosing the jurisdiction most favorable to them, arguing that it would have been too late to bring a defamation action against her under French law. The Macrons' legal team said it "keeps all options open" so that Owens "answers personally for her actions." On November 4, as revealed by POLITICO, they filed new defamation proceedings against the influencer, this time in Tennessee. The Macrons are prepared to provide scientific evidence to refute the allegations, the couple's American lawyer said. But winning a defamation lawsuit in the United States against a public figure is a genuine legal challenge. They must demonstrate actual malice: the fact that Owens made defamatory statements knowing they were false or with reckless disregard for the truth. That is why Tom Clare hired Dan Nardello: to comb through Candace Owens's statements and uncover her potential motives. His team examined her background, her business interests, and the financial benefits she may have derived from spreading these allegations. The goal is to establish not only that Owens profited from promoting this conspiracy theory, but also that she knowingly or recklessly ignored evidence contradicting her claims. "All of this is quite clear. What escapes me is how she thinks she'll get away with it," Nardello said. Yet these years of legal proceedings illustrate how difficult it is to stem the spread of disinformation once it has spread widely. In a small bookshop on rue Duquesne, in the very chic 7th arrondissement of Paris, Jean-Christophe Gruau, 63, and Alain Vauthier, 76, have followed every twist and turn of this saga. The shop, where the former works and of which the latter is a regular, sells ultra-conservative authors and far-right pamphlets. The two men know Xavier Poussard's work well. They have seen these accusations go around the world and praise Candace Owens for her "interest in po [Article truncated]