French President Emmanuel Macron and wife Brigitte sue major podcaster Candace Owens over gender claim
In a complaint filed to the Delaware Superior Court in the United States, The French couple said Ms Owens has waged a 'campaign of global humiliation' laden with false statements in an effort to promote her podcast.
A focal point of the defamation lawsuit is Ms Owen's highly controversial claim that Ms Macron, aged 72, was actually born a man named Jean-Michel Trogneux - which the President and his wife have said is the name of Ms Macron's older brother.
The couple have asserted comments made by Ms Owens about their appearance, marriage, personal history and friends and family have been twisted into a 'grotesque narrative designed to inflame and degrade', resulting in 'relentless bullying on a worldwide scale".
Ms Owens has claimed though legal representatives for her and the couple have been communicating since January, she was not aware a lawsuit was on the way.
Addressing the matter on her podcast on Thursday, Ms Owens took aim at the Macrons over the lawsuit, claiming it is 'littered with factual inaccuracies'.
She also said it was an "obvious and desperate public relations strategy" to smear her character.
A spokesperson for Ms Owens has labelled the lawsuit an effort to bully the podcaster, with Ms Macron reportedly having rejected multiple requests from the American for an interview.
"This is a foreign government attacking the First Amendment rights of an American independent journalist," the spokesperson said.
Meanwhile, lawyers for the Macrons released a joint statement saying Ms Owens had rejected three demands to retract comments before a lawsuit was filed.
The French President's relationship with his wife came under the spotlight earlier this year after a moment caught on camera of Ms Macron shoving him in the face went viral.
In the footage, Ms Macron appeared to push her husband in the face behind the doorway of a plane after the couple touched down in Vietnam ahead of a tour of Southeast Asia in May.
Following the interaction, Ms Macron then seemingly refused to hold her husband's arm as the pair walked down the steps onto the tarmac.
The French President later downplayed the significance of the incident when he later spoke to reporters in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi, saying he was 'bickering, or rather joking, with my wife'.
With Reuters
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