French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte Macron, filed a federal defamation lawsuit against commentator Candace Owens in Nashville, KXAN reported Tuesday, citing WKRN¹.

The complaint was filed Nov. 4 in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee and accuses Owens of spreading false claims about the first lady's identity and the couple's marriage¹. Reuters also reported a new U.S. lawsuit by France's president and wife against Owens².

According to KXAN's account of the complaint, the case centers on statements that Brigitte Macron was born a man and assumed another person's identity, and on claims that the couple committed crimes to conceal that account¹. The complaint says Owens first made the claim publicly in March 2024¹.

KXAN quoted the complaint as citing Owens saying she would stake her entire professional reputation on the claim that Brigitte Macron is a man¹. The Macrons allege she continued the claims through an eight-part podcast series titled "Becoming Brigitte," later episodes, and social media, including after they sued her in Delaware in July 2025¹.

The Tennessee complaint, as summarized by KXAN, says Owens "unequivocally doubled down" after the Delaware filing¹. Claims against two business entities associated with Owens remain pending in Delaware, according to that account¹.

KXAN reported Owens wrote on X on Oct. 27 that the Delaware matter was an overreach by a foreign government leader trying to bankrupt a podcaster outside the country he governs¹. The Macrons' lawyers argue Tennessee is the proper venue because Owens lives in Nashville and allegedly created and published the material from the state¹.

The couple is seeking actual, presumed, and punitive damages, a narrowly tailored injunction against republishing statements a court finds defamatory, and a jury trial, KXAN reported¹. Reuters' full article was not available to this desk, so its additional detail is not restated here².

Whether a court will treat the identity claims as defamatory, and how the Tennessee and Delaware cases interact, has not been decided. Owens' response to the Tennessee complaint beyond the earlier X post was not in the KXAN report¹.