Welcome back to Barf Bag.
Candace Owens is, in the words of this website, a professional troll. Until about 18 months ago, she did that trolling on the payroll of the right-wing website The Daily Wire, but they fired her for making antisemitic statements. She’s now out on her own with a podcast and a sadly gigantic YouTube channel. It’s in this capacity that she’s been spinning wild tales that the First Lady of France, Brigitte Macron, is transgender. Now, French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife are suing Owens for defamation.
The 219-page complaint filed in Delaware Superior Court on Wednesday alleges that Owens has posted multiple, lie-filled videos on her YouTube account, which has nearly 4.5 million subscribers. Owens has posted a multi-part series called “Becoming Brigitte” and is even selling merch promoting the conspiracy theory. The complaint argues that Owens “has used this false statement to promote her independent platform, gain notoriety, and make money.”
Tom Clare, the Macrons’ lawyer, told CNN that, for nearly a year, the couple has repeatedly requested that she stop making these claims. But as Clare told Jake Tapper, “Each time we’ve done that, she mocked the Macrons, she mocked our efforts to set the record straight.” He added that the Macrons only filed the lawsuit as a “last resort,” saying, “enough is enough, it was time to hold her accountable.”
The couple will seek punitive damages, but Clare declined to say the amount they’d seek. However, he did note that if Owens continues making the claim, “it’ll be a substantial award.”
The Associated Press notes that, unfortunately, the Macrons have heard this exact kind of nonsense before:
In France, too, the presidential couple has for years been dogged by conspiracy theories that Brigitte was born as a man named Jean-Michel Trogneux, who supposedly then took the name Brigitte as a transgender woman. Jean-Michel Trogneux is, in fact, Brigitte’s brother.
Last September, Brigitte and Jean-Michel Trogneux won a defamation suit against two women who were sentenced by a Paris court to fines and damages for spreading the claims about the first lady online. A Paris appeals court overturned the ruling earlier this month. Brigitte and her brother have since turned to France’s highest court to appeal that decision, according to French media.
Owens responded to the suit—where else—on YouTube, by calling it an “obvious and desperate public relations strategy,” and referred to the first lady as “a very goofy man.”
This is not the first time Owens has gotten in trouble online. YouTube suspended her in September 2023 for anti-LGBTQ comments that the platform said violated its rules on hate speech. It suspended her again and demonetized her account a year later after an interview with Kanye West in which the pair claimed that Jewish people control the media. But this appears to be the first time she’s been sued for defamation, and definitely the first suit from a world leader.
Owens memorably suggested in 2023 that things in the U.S. have gotten worse since women got the right to vote. Weeks later, at Turning Point USA’s annual Young Women’s Leadership Summit, Owens said, “Every ill that we’re fighting right now in society has been brought forth by women.”
I can certainly think of one woman bringing ill into society!
2028 GOP primary watch:
Josh Hawley is rolling out his compelling 2028 persona, Guy Who Feels Your Pain Now That The Bills He Voted For Made Your Life Miserable
— Paul Waldman (@paulwaldman.bsky.social) 2025-07-23T14:41:24.137Z
NYC mayor Eric Adams watch:
Trump-related barf:
- The head of FEMA’s Urban Search and Rescue branch, Ken Pagurek, resigned in the wake of the Texas floods and alleged that DHS Secretary Kristi Noem took 72 hours to authorize the deployment of FEMA’s search and rescue network. [CNN]
- The messages Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sent in Signal, previewing a U.S. bombing campaign in Yemen, came from information in a classified email labeled “SECRET,” per an inspector general. [Washington Post]
- Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) was apparently reluctant to do a rare, mid-decade redrawing of the state’s congressional maps redistricting—until President Donald Trump called him. (Republicans have a two-seat majority in the House and are expected to lose control of the chamber in the 2026 midterms.) [Texas Tribune]
- The Department of Defense said in a memo that, in order to comply with Trump’s anti-trans executive orders, it had changed the signs on bathroom doors to “reflect biological sex” and will continue to “monitor intimate spaces to ensure ongoing compliance.” These people are the real freaks. [404 Media]
- The same Trump administration that claims its mass deportation effort is targeting hardened criminals permitted a convicted triple murderer back into the U.S. as part of a prisoner swap. [New York Times]
- House Republicans have proposed naming the Kennedy Center‘s opera house after First Lady Melania Trump. [CBS News]
- Trump threatened to hold up funding for a new stadium deal for the Washington Commanders unless the NFL team reverts its name back to a racial slur for Indigenous people. [Associated Press]
- Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) said that he made a mistake in voting to confirm an anti-abortion Trump judicial nominee, Joshua Divine, to a lifetime seat in Missouri. He blamed advice he got from Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who gave Divine “a strong reference.” [HuffPost]
Non-Trump barf:
- Texas Attorney General and Senate candidate Ken Paxton appears to have lied on mortgage applications claiming multiple homes as a primary residence in order to lock in lower interest rates. [Associated Press]
- Diva Down: disgraced former Congressman George Santos reported to federal prison in New Jersey on Friday for his seven-plus-year sentence for wire fraud, identity theft, and money laundering. [NBC News]
- Even after finally meeting with him, Speaker of the House Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) has still not endorsed NYC Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani. [MSNBC/C-SPAN]
- Former president Joe Biden has sold a memoir for a cool $10 million, which is still less than even Bill Clinton got for his 2004 autobiography. [The Hill]
- In the unfortunate tradition of centrist schmucks who are happy to throw trans people under the bus because they want to be president, here’s Rahm Emanuel telling Megyn Kelly that a man cannot become a woman. [The Hill]
- Minnesota state Sen. Nicole Mitchell (D) will resign after she was convicted of felony burglary for breaking into her stepmother’s house. [NBC News]
This has been your weekly Barf Bag, thanks for reading!
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