Candace Owens accuses Financial Times of trying to "protect the Macrons," likens Brigitte's alleged "PR move" to Blake Lively's

American political commentator and author Candace Owens recently responded to the Financial Times publishing an article about her. On Monday, August 11, 2025, the news organization published an article titled: “Macrons hired investigators to research US influencer Candace Owens.”

The 36-year-old media personality has been in the headlines for claiming that Brigitte Macron, the First Lady of France, was born male. The Financial Times article alleges that podcaster Candace Owens has links to right-wing figures in Europe and the US.

On the same day, Owens posted on the social media platform X, accusing the Financial Times of trying to protect the Macrons. Sharing screenshots of her statement, she criticized the newspaper for not publishing her full response.

“The @FT had been working on this story for a week. Yet they gave us only two hours to respond to the article before they published. Despite us meeting this aggressive timeline, they still refused to publish my full statement to protect the Macrons,” Candace Owens wrote.

She also turned to her YouTube channel and doubled down on the Financial Times report, in which Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron admitted that they hired a former US Federal prosecutor to investigate her.

In the video, Owens talked about the email she received from the Financial Times requesting her statement for their August 11 article. She questioned the Macrons' move to allegedly hire the news organization and said:

“They were the chosen publication of Brigitte and Emanuel when they decided to announce the lawsuit before I had ever even been served. They decided I'm going to show the Financial Times everything that we're going to serve her with so that they can have this article ready. It's very Blake Lively, a PR move, right?”

Owens also compared Brigitte and Emmanuel, reportedly hiring the Financial Times, to Blake Lively hiring The New York Times. For the unversed, The New York Times published an article on December 21, 2024, about Lively’s se*ual harassment allegations against her It Ends With Us co-star and director, Justin Baldoni.

In retaliation, Baldoni filed a $250 million defamation lawsuit against The New York Times, accusing the newspaper of relying on the actress’s “unverified and self-serving narrative.”

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Candace Owens calls the Financial Times article and the investigation on her “crazy”

According to the August 11 article by the Financial Times, the investigation into Owens was conducted by the US-based firm Nardello & Co. The reports were reportedly presented to the French president and first lady as they filed their lawsuit against the media personality last month.

The news outlet states that the investigators outlined her alleged connections to right-wing populist figures in the US and UK, as well as her online interactions with a Russian nationalist. FT quoted Dan Nardello, executive chair of Nardello & Co. and a former New York federal prosecutor, saying:

“The Macrons have brought this lawsuit with the full knowledge of who Owens is aligned with.”

G7 Summit in France (Image via Getty)

FT mentioned Candace Owens’ alleged connection to Xavier Poussard, the former editor-in-chief of Faits et Documents, Marion Maréchal, the niece of French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, Alexander Dugin, a Russian nationalist and philosopher, and more.

In response, the media personality said in her YouTube video:

“Just to right away comment on that, it's still so crazy to me. I speak everywhere. I mean, I have done hundreds and hundreds of events. I have spoken in Hungary. I've spoken in the UK… And they are now saying that their proof is that they realized I spoke in Paris one time. And that the niece of Marine Le Pen also spoke at that event. So that's evidence of something?”

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Candace Owens first referenced the theory that Brigitte Macron was born male in a March 2024 episode of her show. She notably mentioned a 2021 Daily Mail report titled “The proof France’s First Lady WASN’T born a man” and did a lengthy interview with Xavier Poussard on her podcast.