<![CDATA[ Quem é Candace Owens, a influencer que jura que Brigitte Macron nasceu um homem ]]>

Candance Owens is one of the darlings of the American ultra-conservative right. The young woman went from criticizing Donald Trump to fervent supporter, only to later attack the current US president. Now she's being sued by Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron for releasing a documentary in which she claims the French first lady was born a man and is trans.

Recently, Candace Owens began a debate with 20 feminists by issuing the challenge: "We live in a matriarchal system, not a patriarchal one." For the commentator, this is a rather mild statement. But it has the power to irritate activists who disagree with her. This is one of her greatest strengths. The 35-year-old conservative is one of the most hated women by Democratic activists and one of the Republicans' main weapons of attack. In 2017, Candace Owens told libertarian commentator Dabe Rubin: "I became a conservative overnight... I realized that liberals were actually racist. Liberals were the real trolls." That year, Owens was already a micro-celebrity on political YouTube. The young African-American woman made videos under the pseudonym RedPillBlack. One of the videos on his channel was titled "I don't care about Charlottesville, the KKK, or white supremacy," and it caught the attention of radical right-wing talking heads like Alex Jones, who then hosted InfoWars.

So she left the camera behind and went to college campuses alongside young conservative star Charlie Kirk. They tried to convince college students to embrace Donald Trump's doctrine and become conservatives. In 2020, she was hired by the Daily Wire to host her own show, Candance. From there, she catapulted to fame.

Owens represents a new breed of conservative: young, part of a minority, outspoken, and adept at using new communication tools like social media and online video.

On Candace, Owens attacked Democrats, overweight celebrities, George Floyd, and feminists. She also drew criticism for, for example, downplaying Kanye West's inflammatory anti-Jewish speeches. Candace even compared "Hollywood Jews" to the Crips and Bloods gangs of Los Angeles.

What is Candace's show about? "What makes me angry," the host told a New Yorker reporter. This list includes the Black Lives Matter movement, the body-positivity movement, the transgender advocacy movement, celebrity plastic surgery, and quarterback Colin Kaepernick. But she also gets angry about things like women wearing leggings for anything other than exercise.

Another common target of Owens is the state of Israel, having repeatedly criticized the genocide in Gaza and the killing of Christians in Palestine at the hands of the Israeli army.

And what does Owens advocate? That only motherhood can satisfy a woman (the so-called trad-wife movement). She argues that abortion is wrong and a tool used to "exterminate Black babies." And she also believes it was "a tremendous mistake" to vote for Donald Trump.

The controversy with Macron

French President Emmanuel Macron filed a defamation lawsuit against the influencer this Wednesday after the American woman produced and published a social media series exploring the possibility that the first lady, Brigitte Macron, "is actually a man." The case involves a series of eight long videos in which Owens claims that the French first lady is a man named Jean-Michel Trogneux. The American woman claims that the current first lady is a relative of the president and that Emmanuel Macron is actually a product of the CIA, echoing a conspiracy theory that has been circulating among online groups since 2021. In 2024, the influencer stated: "I would stake my entire professional reputation on the fact that Brigitte Macron is a man." Since then, these accusations have been reinforced until the release of "Becoming Brigitte." The videos are "outlandish, defamatory, and absurd fictions," Emmanuel Macron's lawyer, Thomas Clare, accused the Financial Times. "The principle here is truth. They [the Macrons] believe it's important to defend themselves. Owens had multiple opportunities to do the right thing, and the response they [got] was to ridicule them." The lawyer assured that Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron are willing to travel to the United States to be present during the trial. "Ms. Owens systematically reiterated these lies in response to requests for her to retract. We concluded that the only possible alternative was to pursue legal action," Thomas Clare noted.

The Macrons speak of "relentless bullying on a global scale." The influencer "dissected his appearance, marriage, family, and personal history—distorting it and creating a grotesque narrative designed to harm" the image of the President and his wife.

In a statement, the French president said: "Since Ownes has consistently reiterated these falsehoods in response to repeated requests for retraction from each of our lawyers, we have concluded that taking the case to court is the only remaining avenue. The smear campaign was clearly designed to harass and hurt us and our families, and to attract attention and notoriety. We gave her every opportunity to backtrack on these allegations, but she refused. We sincerely hope that this lawsuit will clarify the facts and put an end to this smear campaign once and for all." Other women who have assumed prominent roles in international politics, such as Michelle Obama and Kamala Harris, have also faced comments accusing them of being "secretly transgender" on social media. In 2021, a Wilson Center report warned of the "deeply misogynistic" trend: "These narratives exploit the trope of the fake woman, suggesting that transgender individuals are not only inherently deceptive, but that this deception is responsible for the power and influence these women wield."

Brigitte and Emmanuel Macron have been married since 2007, after meeting at the school where the current French president was a student and his wife was a teacher. At the time, Brigitte was married and already had three children; her first daughter was born the same year as Macron.