Bulwark Takes - Candace Owens’ DISGUSTING Obsession May Cost Her Big

Episode Date: July 24, 2025

Sonny Bunch and Will Sommer dig into the chaos surrounding Candace Owens, the bizarre conspiracy about the French First Lady, and what happens when right-wing grift spills across international borders. Get 10% off your first month of therapy with BetterHelp at https://BetterHelp.com/BULWARKTAKES. #sponsored

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If you have questions or concerns about gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. Ben MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Hey everybody, welcome back to the Bulwark. I'm Sonny Bunch. I am very pleased to be joined today by Will Sommer, who is the author of our false flag newsletter. It's your must read about everything in the world of crazy online, right wing nonsense. Will, we've got a big breaking story here today. Turns out Candace Owens may regret insinuating for

the last several years that Emmanuel Marcon's wife used to was a man. Yes. This is a truly bizarre case. This is when my world of the right-wing fever sort of collides with international politics. Yeah, so Candace Owens, folks may remember, she's kind of like a famous YouTube conservative. She's hugely popular on this platform and many others. And so she had this really long docu series, I think it was eight parts a few

months ago, alleging that Brigitte Macron, the wife of the President of France was trans. But it's not just that she's alleging that. I mean, it is truly I had the displeasure of watching. I was like, all right, I got to figure out the deal. So I locked in and I watched this. And it's not just that Brigitte Macron is trans, but it's like, she's maybe Macron's dad, that they're part of this, like centuries old medieval cult that like undermines the world.

There's all these other accusations and it is truly crazy but it was also hugely popular. And so you know Joe Rogan became convinced that Brigitte Macron was trans. All of these other kind of comedians started saying this and I think this was also hugely big. I think this was also really popular on TikTok as well. And so and it really elevated Candace Owens's brand, at least in terms of its size, if not its respectability. And so now the McCroms are saying enough is enough and they have filed a lawsuit in the US against Candace Owens. I want to get into this in a second because it is the the actual mechanics of this lawsuit are kind of interesting because they you know they're French this this lawsuit is

taking place in America which is you know it's harder to get libel laws and that sort of thing enforced here but it like I have to say it does seem like a fairly straightforward slam dunk case against Candace Owens. It's insane. Like the videos are insane. I watched some of them myself and I could not believe the things I was seeing in them. What is her team's response to this lawsuit? Yeah, so I talked to recently since this lawsuit has been filed with someone in Owens's camp

and they say number one she hasn't been served yet. That's not huge, not really that big a deal. But that she is, I mean she's not backing down. I mean she's supposed to be addressing it on her show but basically they are not, I mean they see this as a sort of a strife and effect situation. Owens is sticking with her guns here. I mean, this is truly and you know, people were kind of quipping, oh, is it really defamatory to say someone is trans? But this lawsuit is huge. It's nearly 300 pages.

And it goes into all of this crazy stuff. Owens has said, and she's also, you know, she has said, I'm staking my career on this. This is something I so fervently believe. You know, she has said, I'm staking my career on this. This is something I so fervently believe. And she's also really made clear that it has been very financially lucrative for her and really increased her audience. She's posted, you know, look, wow, look how many people

watch this docu-series. This has been such a big deal. And so that gets into, you know, what are the damages? Was Candace Owens acting in a reckless way to promote her brand? But for now, I mean, they say they're sticking with it. Now, part of this sort of law in America is that you do have to show damages

against the individual who has been hurt, financial damages, right, if you want to. And I'm curious what financial damages they would be able to show or is it just emotional damage? I mean, is this just like, I am tired of having to deal with being accused of being trans but also like being the father, like the medieval cult aspect of it. The whole thing is insane. This is an ad by BetterHelp. Workplace stress is now one of the top causes of declining mental health with 61%

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I mean, this idea originated with some far-right writers in France, and then Candace Owens really picked it up and popularized it and really professionalized these claims. But yeah, I mean, the videos are really incredibly, this isn't a legal term, but they're very rude. I mean, a lot of Owens's evidence is sort of like I mean, because there are a lot of pictures of Brigitte Macron as a younger woman around the time she was a teacher and, you know, fell in love, such as it is with with with Emmanuel Macron.

And you know, there are people, a lot of people who knew her back then. And so how does Candace Owens get around this idea that all these people knew Brigitte Macron as a woman? And how does she say that this is really a man who has become trans and stolen an identity and all this stuff? And she says, you know, well, people say she was so hot back then, but look at this picture. Is that really hot? No, she looks ugly. I mean, it's not really the highest standard of evidence that she's using. And so there are all these other, you know, basically she's also implicating Brigitte Macron's brother because she's claiming that the brother is sort of who Brigitte Macron really is and then has adopted the Brigitte identity.

So this is something that supposedly has really terrorized the Macron family. And you might say, well, I don't know, it's the president and first lady of France. Are they really that bothered by Candace Owens? But, you know, in one interesting thing that we haven't really talked about here in the past that I chased down was a few weeks ago, Candace Owens claimed that Trump himself called her. Basically, a bunch of people in the administration had been telling her to stop talking about the Brigitte Macron trans stuff. And then ultimately that Trump called her and said, look, Macron is holding up the Ukrainian peace

process because he's so mad about your YouTube videos. Now, setting aside the Ukrainian peace process stuff, do we think that Macron really approached Trump in person, so she claims, and then that Trump then relayed this to Candace Owens? Well, number one, I kind of don't think she would make that up because, you know, this world is so she claims, and then that Trump then relayed this to Candace Owens. Well, number one, I kind of don't think she would make that up because, you know, this world is so based on, like, your proximity to Trump and not lying about it. But then I said, this still has to be fake. So I asked the White House about this, and they said, we're not going to comment on Trump's private

conversations. So make of that what you will. But I mean, it does appear that these claims have really reached this kind of foreign policy level. I'll say it strikes me as a totally reasonable thing to have happen. If you are Macron and you are dealing with Donald Trump and you know that Donald Trump is at least in contact with Candace Owens and this thing is really bothering his wife, if something like that was bothering my wife, I would probably be asked to relay the message. It seems totally reasonable. And I'm actually kind of fascinated by the MAGA world reaction to this because there

has to be, look, on the one hand, there's the old rally around the flag effect, like you French can't sue our beloved journalists and YouTube stars. But that's that's not on the other hand. I do think that most of the more respectable elements of this movement have kind of been like, stop talking about this. You sound insane. It does sound insane. You know, but the challenge for them is that if you're someone like Candace Owens who is

making this big splashy deranged claim, I mean, we know that that is how in many ways you get clout on the right, how you build your audience versus, you know, someone who is more mainstream who might be saying, you know, oh my gosh, I want to talk about the tax cuts or something. I mean, that's boring compared to a centuries long cult that Candace almost claims to be exposing. And so, yeah, I mean, this is and she's also someone who is sort of on the outs with a lot of her allies or her erstwhile allies on the right for other reasons.

She's very anti Israel. I think her most recent campaign has been attacking Holocaust survivor Eli Wessel. So, I mean, this is not stuff that really, like, builds a lot of alliances. So she's sort of out here on her own. On the other hand, I mean, obviously, as you mentioned, winning a libel lawsuit in the United States is very difficult. The other thing to mention here is that she's rep... the McCrone's have hired Claire Locke, which is sort of the

headhunter, defamation, libel lawsuit firm. They're the folks who destroyed Gawker on behalf of Hulk Hogan and Peter Thiel. So, you know, they really got the big guns here. Yeah, I look. And again, it seems like, you know, she she will not have the foundational bedrock defense against libel and slander, which is that it's the truth. So we'll be curious to see what effort she's able to put together here. But I, for one, wish the Macron's best on their efforts here because it's a pretty disgusting thing. Every time I see it pop up in my feed, I get annoyed by the person who has put it there even if they're making fun of the the the theory in question.

It is really vile. I mean it's even by the standards of this this world that I swim in. You know I want to take a shower after watching these videos. I mean it is just so gross and it's just so rude and seemingly for for no reason beyond you, sort of advancing the Candace Owens brand, which I think it's been very successful at doing. And, you know, it's also the one other thing I'd note here is that's interesting is that in the past, you know, if we think about like from Pizza Gate 2016 to the Dominion lawsuits, which were sparked in 2020, the right-wing media was very into these, like very specific, like this guy did it, you know, Dinesh D'Souza 2000 mules, this guy stole the election, this kind of stuff.

But after those successful lawsuits, we saw a lot more of a shift away to much more like the nefarious cabal who we're not going to name, or as we're seeing more recently, people like accusing someone who basically is liable proof like Barack Obama of stealing the election or what have you. But Candace Owens was doing something interesting, which was accusing someone quite directly. Perhaps she figured because Brigitte Macron is such a public figure, this wouldn't be an issue. But it is always interesting when these things really sort of hit, you know, when these figures have to face consequences.

Yeah. Well, Will, thanks for bringing us down first. I'm sure there will be many more stories about this in the weeks to come because Owens has nothing to lose by not backing down. She's just going to get more and more famous out of... I mean, I will say her, my sense is her husband's very wealthy, but obviously she has a company. I mean, we'll have to see. I mean, in the McCrone's, of course, with this lawsuit, you do risk fanning the flames. And now this is

going to get written up in the New York Times. A lot of outlets that understandably have shied away from addressing these claims in the past. Yeah. Well, Will, thanks for filling us in. Absolutely. And again, I'm Sonny Bunch. Make sure you go subscribe to the Bullwork, go to thebullwork.com, sign up. You want to get Will's false Bullwork, go to thebullwork.com, sign up. You want to get Will's false flag newsletter. It's the best thing out there, just keeping track of all this insanity.

Twice a week, it'll make you smile. And make sure you subscribe to the YouTube channel and hit like and share it with your friends. You don't want them in the dark about Candace Owens' lawsuit here. You want to be able to chat about it over the water cooler. It's going to be great. It's going to be fun times over the next several months here.