Candace Owens celebrates Macron ruling, says she wasn't sued for saying wife was born male

A Delaware judge has dismissed podcaster Candace Owens from a defamation lawsuit brought by French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte Macron, but two companies tied to her remain defendants.

Delaware Superior Court Judge Sheldon K. Rennie ruled Tuesday that the court lacked personal jurisdiction over Owens, who lives in Tennessee. In plain terms, the court lacks legal power over her. The judge also determined that French law, rather than Delaware law, governs the statute of limitations in the case.

In France, the statute of limitations is three months, meaning the injured party must file a lawsuit within three months of when the statements were made. The deadline can be extended to one year only in specific cases involving discriminatory speech targeting race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.

The court reserved its decision on whether the three-month limit or the one-year extension applies and instructed both sides to submit supplemental briefs arguing the point.

Though Owens was dismissed personally, the court kept the claims against her two companies, Candace Owens LLC and GeorgeTom, Inc.

Owens, who hosts the “Candace” podcast, celebrated her dismissal in an X post Tuesday and alleged that reporters had lied about the case.

“And to formally reiterate since many reporters willfully lied about this most important detail: I was NEVER being sued for stating that Brigitte Macron was born a male. I was instead being sued for discussing MK Ultra and for allegedly accusing the ‘First Lady’ of theft from her sister,” she wrote.

In a follow-up X post, Owens argued that the Macrons have never sued anyone over matters involving sex, sexual orientation or gender.

“I believe it is worth again noting that the couple is NOT and has never sued anyone for matters pertaining to sex, sexual orientation, or gender,” she wrote, adding that the lawsuit instead concerns alleged defamation over claims about MK Ultra and theft.

The Macrons sued the podcaster and her two companies in July 2025, accusing Owens of spreading lies to boost her viewership, including claims that Brigitte Macron was born male and that she stole someone else’s identity.

Owens’ posts prompted a response from Andrea Burkhart, who describes herself on X as an experienced trial and appellate litigator. Burkhart said Owens’ assertion that she was not being sued for claiming Brigitte Macron was born male was “unequivocally false.”

The podcaster responded that Burkhart relied on language from the opening page of the Macrons’ 250-page amended complaint, which she described as a narrative summary rather than one of the lawsuit’s 22 counts.

The amended complaint lists Owens’ claims about Brigitte Macron’s sex and identity among the alleged defamatory statements at the center of the dispute. It points to the podcast series “Becoming Brigitte,” in which “Owens and her entities … endorsed, repeated, and published a series of verifiably false and devastating lies about the Macrons, on which this complaint is based.”

After the Macrons filed suit in July 2025, the amended complaint alleges, Owens “unequivocally doubled down” on her claims, continuing to spread lies about the couple and sell merchandise that mocks them.

According to the amended complaint, Owens launched a new season of “Becoming Brigitte” in September 2025 and alleged that Brigitte Macron took part in the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment, which Owens claimed was somehow linked to the French first lady’s supposed “transition.”

“These claims are demonstrably false, and Owens knew they were false when she published them,” the Macrons wrote in the amended complaint. “Yet, she published them anyway. And the reason is clear: It is not the pursuit of truth, but the pursuit of fame.”