Candace Owens Lawsuit Dropped: The Macrons’ Defamation Case

The Candace Owens lawsuit has not been dropped. The defamation case French President Emmanuel Macron and First Lady Brigitte Macron filed against Owens remains active in Delaware Superior Court, and a hearing on Owens’ motion to dismiss is scheduled for June 22, 2026, before Judge Sheldon K. Rennie.¹ Far from walking away, the Macrons filed a 241-page amended complaint in September 2025 and added new attorneys to their team as recently as April 2026.²

Where the Case Stands Now

The docket shows a live case moving through pretrial motions, not one being abandoned. The Macrons filed suit on July 23, 2025, in Delaware Superior Court, naming Owens personally along with two of her Delaware-registered companies, Candace Owens LLC and GeorgeTom Inc.³ Owens filed a 43-page motion to dismiss on September 12, 2025. The Macrons answered two weeks later with an amended complaint that expanded the case rather than narrowing it.²

Recent activity on the docket also cuts against any suggestion the plaintiffs are pulling back. In April 2026, the court granted several motions admitting attorneys from Clare Locke LLP on a special basis, including Thomas A. Clare, Elizabeth M. Locke, and three additional lawyers.¹ On the defense side, Marc Kasowitz, an attorney known for representing Donald Trump, filed a notice of withdrawal from Owens’ team on April 21, 2026. No reason was given. Owens remains represented by Richards, Layton & Finger PA, Noah Balch Law PC, and Horwitz Law PLLC.⁴

What the Macrons Are Suing Over

The 22-count complaint accuses Owens of a “campaign of global humiliation” built around the claim that Brigitte Macron was born a biological male named Jean-Michel Trogneux. Jean-Michel Trogneux is the name of Mrs. Macron’s older brother.⁵ Owens promoted the theory through an eight-part podcast series called “Becoming Brigitte” and through posts on X to her roughly 4.5 million YouTube subscribers. She also sold merchandise, including T-shirts showing Mrs. Macron’s face on a fake Time magazine “Man of the Year” cover.⁶

The complaint asserts defamation, false light, and defamation by implication, and seeks unspecified damages including punitive damages.⁷ The Macrons’ lead attorney is Tom Clare of Clare Locke LLP, the firm that secured a $787.5 million settlement for Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News. According to Clare, the couple sent Owens three separate retraction demands over roughly a year, each including documentary evidence, before filing what they called a “last resort” lawsuit.⁸

The amended complaint added allegations covering conduct after the suit was filed. Owens launched a second season of “Becoming Brigitte” in September 2025 claiming Mrs. Macron had participated in the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment and was linked to the CIA’s MKUltra program.⁹ In November 2025, Owens alleged on X that the Macrons had ordered her assassination through France’s National Gendarmerie Intervention Group (GIGN) and were complicit in the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated on September 10, 2025. The GIGN called the allegations “fake news,” and France’s Ministry of Armed Forces said the person Owens identified as Kirk’s assassin was never a member of the French Foreign Legion. Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, publicly dismissed Owens’ claims as “lies.”¹⁰

The Macrons’ legal team said in a statement that Owens’ post-filing conduct only helped them. “Since we filed this lawsuit, Ms. Owens has only strengthened our case by doubling down on, and escalating, her knowingly false and defamatory rhetoric against the Macrons,” counsel said.²

Why Owens Wants the Case Dismissed

Owens’ motion to dismiss attacks the case on procedural grounds, not on the truth of what she said. Her three main arguments:

Personal jurisdiction. Owens is a Tennessee resident who records her podcast in Nashville. Her attorneys argue that forming companies in Delaware does not, by itself, subject her to Delaware courts for a defamation case unrelated to those companies’ internal affairs.¹¹
Statute of limitations. The defense argues that Delaware’s borrowing statute requires the court to apply France’s three-month statute of limitations for defamation, which would make the claims time-barred. The filing calls the suit “quintessential libel tourism.”¹¹
Improper venue. The defense contends Delaware is an inconvenient forum because no relevant witnesses or evidence are located there.¹¹

Owens has also invoked the First Amendment, arguing in a court filing that holding her liable would violate “a sacred precept of US Constitutional Law.”⁴ A spokesperson for Owens described the suit as a “foreign government attacking the First Amendment rights of an American independent journalist.”⁶

The Macrons counter that Candace Owens LLC and GeorgeTom Inc. are both organized under Delaware law, and that Owens used those entities to distribute the allegedly defamatory content.⁹

What the Macrons Have to Prove

Because they are public figures, the Macrons must prove “actual malice” under American defamation law, meaning Owens either knew her statements were false or published them with reckless disregard for the truth. That is a deliberately high bar.¹²

The plaintiffs’ strategy for meeting it rests heavily on the retraction letters. The complaint details three demands sent to Owens before filing, each including what the Macrons describe as “incontrovertible evidence” of Mrs. Macron’s identity, including her 1953 birth announcement, childhood photographs, photos from her first wedding in 1974, and photos of her pregnancies.¹³ Clare told The Guardian the couple plans to present expert testimony that is “scientific in nature” and to “demonstrate fully, both generically and specifically” that the claims are false.¹⁴ The theory is that Owens’ decision to keep publishing after receiving that evidence shows reckless disregard for the truth.

Owens has told her audience the fight will cost roughly $5 million and has solicited donations to fund her defense.⁷ Attorney Robert Barnes, who previously defended Alex Jones, wrote on X that Owens has a “0% chance of winning in court,” calling her statements “some of the dumbest, obvious lies one can tell.”⁸

What To Watch Next

The next major event in the U.S. case is the June 22, 2026 hearing on Owens’ motion to dismiss. If Judge Rennie grants the motion in full, the case ends at that stage; if he denies it, the litigation proceeds toward discovery and eventual trial on the underlying defamation claims.¹

A separate track runs in France, though it does not control the U.S. case. The conspiracy theory traces to a December 2021 YouTube video by Natacha Rey and Amandine Roy. A French court found the pair guilty of defamation in September 2024 and ordered them to pay €8,000 to Mrs. Macron and €5,000 to her brother, but a Paris appeals court overturned those convictions on July 10, 2025, ruling that stating a person had changed gender does not necessarily constitute an “attack on their honor.” Mrs. Macron and her brother have appealed to France’s Court of Cassation.¹⁵ Legal experts have cautioned that French rulings do not carry direct weight in American courts, where First Amendment protections and the actual malice standard set a different framework.¹²

1
Delaware Courts. Docket Report, Emmanuel Macron v. Candace Owens
2
The Advocate. Macrons File Amended Complaint Against Candace Owens
3
Bloomberg Law. French President Macron Sues Candace Owens in US for Defamation
4
Bloomberg Law. Trump Lawyer Kasowitz Leaves Candace Owens Team in Macron Case
5
CNN. Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron File Defamation Lawsuit Against Candace Owens
6
Politico. Emmanuel Macron Sues Candace Owens for Defamation
7
Fortune. Candace Owens Brigitte Macron Lawsuit
8
Los Angeles Times. France Macron Candace Owens Defamation Lawsuit
9
Clare Locke LLP. Amended Complaint, Macron v. Owens
10
Euronews. Candace Owens Says Macrons Ordered Her Assassination but Provides No Evidence
11
ALM. Owens Motion to Dismiss Brief
12
Christian Science Monitor. Brigitte Macron Trans Defamation Law France US
13
ABC News Australia. What to Know About Macrons Defamation Suit Against Candace Owens
14
The Guardian. Macrons Submit Scientific Evidence US Court Prove Brigitte Not Man
15
Le Monde. Brigitte Macron Takes Gender Libel Case to Frances Highest Appeals Court