Fact Check: Did France pay Candace Owens millions to dispel ‘Brigitte Macron is trans’ rumor?

WASHINGTON, DC: A rumor is swirling that France allegedly tried to throw millions at conservative firebrand Candace Owens just to make her stop talking about Brigitte Macron—specifically, the claim that the French first lady is actually a trans woman.

Social media has been blowing up over this claim.

Viral claim about Candace Owens and Brigitte Macron sets Internet on fire

An Instagram user recently posted a video alleging that France was willing to shell out $4 million upfront and a $50,000 monthly paycheck for life if Candace Owens would just zip it about Brigitte Macron.

The post was captioned in all caps: "BREAKING: FRANCE offered to pay CANDACE OWENS a one-time payment of $4 MILLION & $50K per-month for the rest of her life, if she STOPPED REPORTING on BRIGITTE MACRON."

As of this writing, that post had racked up 1,648 likes, and the comment section was pure chaos. Some people took the claim at face value, instantly concluding that the rumor must be true.

"SO IT IS TRUE Brigitte is a man," one person declared.

"Well then, that nails it. He is a man," another insisted.

"Well, there it is. The media is paid to report a certain way," someone else chimed in.

"Sounds like she is on the right track!!" a comment read.

"The truth will surface and cannot be suppressed forever," another user remarked.

Fact Check: False

A Google search of that exact caption shows that the same claim has been copy-pasted across multiple platforms—X (formerly Twitter), Gab, and Facebook. The first instance of this viral rumor came from an X account named "Legitimate Targets," which is run by political commentator Jackson Hinkle.

There is zero evidence to support any of this. No reputable news outlet has picked it up, and fact-checking site Snopes has already debunked the entire "Brigitte Macron is trans" rumor multiple times. But that hasn’t stopped Candace Owens from pushing the narrative hard since last year. In fact, she’s even helped launch a podcast series dedicated to the claim.

Owens is no stranger to controversy, but she’s not the only one with a history of pushing outlandish claims. Hinkle—who once supported Bernie Sanders—has since done a full 180 and rebranded himself as a Putin-loving, anti-woke, pro-Palestine, pro-Russia, pro-China, self-described "Marxist-Leninist."

Hinkle courted controversy when he praised Syria’s former dictator Bashar al-Assad as a "hero," defended Iran’s Islamist regime against Israel, downplayed Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, and falsely attributed statements to Israeli newspaper Haaretz (which Haaretz immediately denied). He also joined a Russian-sponsored "mission" to Donbas after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, according to Snopes.

Both the New York Times and Conspiracy Watch (a French fact-checking site) have flagged him as a major spreader of Russian propaganda and disinformation.

To conclude, the claim that France bribed Candace Owens to stop her from referring to Brigitte Macron as a trans woman is completely false.