Key facts
- The new Nashville filing brings 88 counts of defamation, false light and defamation by implication against Owens personally.
- The Macrons seek actual, presumed and punitive damages and an injunction barring Owens from republishing statements the suit calls defamatory.
- The complaint says Owens doubled down after the Delaware suit, citing her eight-part podcast series 'Becoming Brigitte' and posts on X.
- The suit alleges Owens sells merchandise mocking the Macrons and collects donations based on her reporting on them.
- A representative for the Macrons' legal team said the filing gives Owens the Tennessee venue she demanded.
- Owens wrote on X that the Macrons filed 88 new claims and that 'Brigitte-Doll will be making no further statements at this time.'
Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron filed a new defamation lawsuit against Candace Owens in Nashville, Tennessee, on November 4, 2026, according to a Guardian report published November 10. The filing brings 88 counts of defamation, false light and defamation by implication against Owens personally, in the state where she lives.
The Macrons first sued Owens and her media companies in Delaware in July 2025 over what the French first couple called "verifiably false and devastating lies" repeated on her podcast and on X. According to that lawsuit, the claims included that Brigitte Macron, 73, was born a man named Jean-Michel Trogneux, who the suit says is her older brother, and committed identity theft to hide a gender transition; that Emmanuel Macron was elected as part of a CIA mind-control program; and that the couple are blood relatives committing incest.
A judge ruled the Macrons' claim was limited in scope to Owens's companies registered in Delaware after she successfully argued the court's jurisdiction did not extend to her personally because she did not live in that state. The case against her companies remains pending.
The new complaint says that since the Delaware lawsuit was filed Owens had "unequivocally doubled down", publishing further "outlandish, defamatory, and far-fetched fictions" through an eight-part podcast series called "Becoming Brigitte" and accompanying posts on X. It alleges she has a financial motive, saying she uses her podcast to expand her claims about the Macrons, sells merchandise making fun of them and collects donations based on her reporting on them.
The filing also mentions a "Brigitte doll" Owens holds in her videos, describing it as "a grotesque, alien-like figure" reminiscent of the namesake character in the film ET. The doll "caricatures Mrs Macron's body", the lawsuit contends, and its use confirms "that her campaign against Mrs Macron is driven by animus toward Mrs Macron's perceived gender identity, gender, and sexuality".
The lawsuit alleges the couple has experienced "relentless bullying on a worldwide scale" and says Owens subjected them to "a campaign of global humiliation, turning their lives into fodder for profit-driven lies". The Macrons are seeking actual, presumed and punitive damages, in addition to a narrowly tailored injunction barring Owens from republishing any defamatory statements.