Macron sues over claim France's first lady is male
The Macrons said in a complaint filed in Delaware Superior Court that Owens has waged a lie-filled "campaign of global humiliation" to promote her podcast and expand her "frenzied" fan base.
These lies included that Brigitte Macron, 72, was born under the name Jean-Michel Trogneux, the actual name of her older brother, the Macrons said.
"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 complaint said.
"The result," the complaint added, "is relentless bullying on a worldwide scale."
In her podcast on Wednesday, Owens said, "This lawsuit is littered with factual inaccuracies," and part of an "obvious and desperate public relations strategy" to smear her character.
A spokesperson for Owens called the lawsuit an effort to bully her, after Brigitte Macron rejected Owens' repeated requests for an interview.
"This is a foreign government attacking the First Amendment rights of an American independent journalist," the spokesperson said.
In a joint statement released by their lawyers, the Macrons said they sued after Owens rejected three demands that she retract defamatory statements.
To prevail in US defamation cases, public figures must show defendants engaged in "actual malice," a tough legal standard requiring proof the defendants knew what they published was false or had reckless disregard for its truth.
Owens has more than 6.9 million followers on X and more than 4.5 million YouTube subscribers.
The Macrons' lawsuit focuses on the eight-part podcast "Becoming Brigitte," which has more than 2.3 million views on YouTube, and X posts linked to it.
According to the Macrons, the series spread "verifiably false and devastating lies," including that Brigitte Macron stole another person's identity and transitioned to female, and that the Macrons are blood relatives committing incest.
The complaint discusses circumstances under which the Macrons met, when the now 47-year-old president was a high school student and Brigitte was a teacher. It said their relationship "remained within the bounds of the law."
In September, Brigitte won a lawsuit in a French court against two women, including a self-described medium, who contributed to spreading rumours about her gender.
An appeals court overturned that decision this month, and Brigitte Macron has appealed to France's highest court.
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