French President Emmanuel Macron and wife Brigitte Macron are set to present photographic evidence to a US court to prove that she is a woman. The move is in connection to their defamation lawsuit against US right-wing influencer Candace Owens, who claimed that Mrs Macron was born a man. In response to the allegations, the Macrons are considering offering the court photographs of Brigitte Macron pregnant and raising her kids, media reports said.
The couple had earlier claimed the comments made by Owens were "extremely upsetting." According to Mrs Macron's legal team, for the defamation suit to go through, it was needed that she "subject herself to [it] in a very public way," but she was willing to do so. Mrs Macron, according to media reports that had access to her legal team, was willing to "do what it takes to set the record straight".
In March 2024, Owens on YouTube had claimed that Brigitte's birthname was Jean-Michel Trogneux, Daily Mail said in a report. She became a woman at the age of 30, she added. Over the months, the popular streamer repeated the claim—the actual name of her older brother before she transitioned aged 30—several times over her YouTube channel, the report added.
The theory, which reportedly stems from an article published in 2021 by a French far-right magazine, had claimed that Brigitte did not give birth to any of her three children and that her first husband, who died in 2020, is a fictional character.
It was in July that the couple launched a defamation suit against Candace Owens, accusing the influencer of bullying. Owens's actions amounted to a "campaign of global humiliation" and were "'outlandish' and 'defamatory' in nature," they maintain.