Macron Forced To Prove His Wife Is Not A Man: How This Bizarre Case Began

The allegations against Brigitte Macron began in 2017.

France's President Emmanuel Macron finds himself in the unusual position of having to "prove" his wife Brigitte is not a transgender woman, as the couple battles a strange 'gender conspiracy' targeting the First Lady. Their attorney, Tom Clare, revealed that the President will present "photographic and scientific evidence" to a US court after filing a defamation lawsuit against American far-right commentator Candace Owens.

According to Clare, the French President will submit photographs showing his wife pregnant and raising her children as evidence in court.

"These individuals hold significant positions on the world stage, but they're also human beings who find it offensive and hurtful to be accused of essentially criminal acts and conspiring to deceive the world about their identities. It's incredibly distressing to think they must subject themselves to providing such proof," Clare stated during a BBC podcast interview.

The strange allegations first emerged in 2017 when blogger Natacha Rey (also known as Nathalie Rey) claimed in a YouTube video that the First Lady was actually her brother, Jean-Michel Trogneux, who had undergone gender reassignment and changed his name. Rey repeated these claims during a 2021 interview with spiritual medium Amandine Roy, which gained viral attention just before France's 2022 Presidential election.

The blogger even presented supposed "evidence" – a childhood photograph of Ms. Macron's brother that she claimed resembled the First Lady.

As these rumors spread online, the Macrons sued the blogger for defamation, resulting in Rey being found guilty in September 2024. However, the Paris Court of Appeal overturned this verdict in July 2025, ruling that the allegations were made in "good faith" and did not constitute defamation.

Candace Owens amplified these claims in 2024, asserting that France's First Lady is a man and stating she would stake her "entire professional reputation" on this allegation.

In July this year, the Macrons filed a defamation case against Owens, which Clare described as a "last resort" following a fruitless year-long attempt to engage with the influencer and request that she "do the right thing: tell the truth, stop spreading these lies."

In response, Owens dismissed the lawsuit as an "obvious and desperate public relations strategy" and referred to Ms. Macron as a "very goofy man."

Owens commands a substantial audience with over 4 million YouTube subscribers. In 2024, she was denied visas by New Zealand and Australia, citing remarks in which she denied Nazi medical experimentation on Jews in concentration camps during World War II.

Emmanuel Macron, now 47, first met his wife, who is 72, when he was a high school student and she was a teacher. At that time, Brigitte was a mother of three and married to Sebastien Auziere. Though Macron moved to Paris for his final year of high school, he promised to marry the future First Lady.

Brigitte later joined him in Paris after divorcing her husband, and the couple married in 2007.

President Macron is currently serving his second and final presidential term.

Earlier this year, the couple faced another controversy when a video allegedly showing Ms. Macron shoving the President's face went viral.

The footage showed Mr. Macron preparing to exit a plane while speaking with his wife in the vestibule next to the boarding gate. Moments later, two arms appeared from the doorway, pushing his face aside. Though startled, President Macron maintained composure upon realizing media were present outside. He looked at the camera, smiled, and raised his right arm to wave.

While initially dismissing the video, President Macron later characterized it as a "joke."