Candace Owens Bets Career on Politician's Wife Being a Man: 'Terrifying'

Conservative commentator Candace Owens said she would bet her career that French President Emmanuel Macron's wife Brigitte is a man.

"After looking into this, I would stake my entire professional reputation on the fact that Brigitte Macron is in fact a man," Owens wrote in a Tuesday post on X, formerly Twitter. "Any journalist or publication that is trying to dismiss this plausibility is immediately identifiable as establishment. I have never seen anything like this in my life. The implications here are terrifying."

Owens spoke in depth about the longstanding conspiracy theory during Monday's episode of her podcast, arguing that if Brigitte really wanted to debunk those claims, she could simply release photos from the first 30 years of her life. Analyzing a rare family photo of Brigitte as a baby, Owens said Brigitte was a "dead ringer" for her brother, and thus, they were really the same person.

Last year, a French court fined two women for promoting the conspiracy about Brigitte in a now-deleted YouTube video. In 2021, Psychic Amandine Roy and self-described freelance journalist Natacha Rey claimed in a four-hour video that the first lady was born as a boy by the name of Jean-Michel Trogneux, which is actually the name of her brother. They also claimed that she did not give birth to her children and that her first husband never existed.

Newsweek reached out to President Macron's office via email for comment.

Macron spoke about the rumors at an International Women's Day event on Friday, saying, "The worst thing is the false information and fabricated scenarios."

"People eventually believe them and disturb you, even in your intimacy," he said.

The Macrons' unconventional relationship has attracted significant media attention and fueled conspiracies. The couple first met when then-40-year-old Brigitte was teaching drama at La Providence High School, where 15-year-old Macron was a student and classmate of her daughter, Laurence. In France, the age of consent is 15.

The two began a relationship when Macron was 16 and married in 2007 when he was 29 and Brigitte was 54. He then became the stepfather to her three children.

Macron was elected France's youngest-ever president in 2017 at the age of 39.

Brigitte's daughter, Tiphaine Auzaine, addressed the claims about her mother last month, telling Paris Match, "I have concerns about the level of society when I hear what is circulating on social networks about my mother being a man."

"The confidence of what is affirmed and the credit given to what is proclaimed. Anyone can say anything about anyone, and it takes time to get it taken down," she said.

On Monday, Owens said that if she were Brigitte Macron and wanted to end the conspiracies, she would hold a press conference with her brother and show photos of herself growing up.

"Then I would say, 'It's harmful to produce conspiracy theories. Now that we have debunked that, let's talk about the harm of conspiracy theories,'" Owens said. "But they're not doing any of that. Instead, they're just scrambling."

Owens then claimed that political operatives were blackmailing the Macrons into passing certain laws or policies in exchange for silence about Brigitte.

"If it is proven true, then what we are unpacking here is exactly what we are unpacking in America, that blackmail is what rules the world," she said.

Correction 03/13/24, 2:08 p.m. ET: An earlier version of this story included a misspelling of Brigitte Macron's name.