Have you heard? Popular US YouTuber Candace Owens is actually 50 per cent human, 50 per cent serpent. In the late 1980s, CIA operatives in upstate New York spliced together human DNA with that of the particularly venomous saw-scaled viper, implanted it in an egg and incubated it. The result is Owens. 

How do I know? A guy on TikTok said so. An Instagram influencer who saw her in real life swore there was a little fork at the end of her tongue. Plus we’ve never actually seen Owens’ full DNA profile so we can’t be sure, can we? 

If you haven’t heard of Owens, you soon will, because she is set for an epic legal showdown against French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte – or Jean -Michel Trogneux, as the YouTuber likes to call her. That’s because Owens insists the First Lady of France was actually born male. Yes, the chic, Chanel-clad mother-of-three was, according to Owens, once the possessor of viande et deux legumes (meat and two veg). 

For months Owens has been pushing this theory on her YouTube channel, even alleging that Brigitte is actually her own brother. Pictures of the First Lady and her sibling are shown side by side as damning evidence, because of course it’s totally bizarre for a brother and sister to look alike. 

While cracking this ‘mystery’, Owens preens like a modern-day Poirot, when in fact she’s more cop Frank Drebin from The Naked Gun. The theory that Madame Macron is her own brother? Shot down in seconds by the fact that the real Monsieur Trogneux is alive and has appeared in public alongside his sister. 

While cracking this ‘mystery’, Candace Owens preens like a modern-day Poirot, when in fact she’s more cop Frank Drebin from The Naked Gun

Nevertheless, millions of monobrain-celled followers across the world have lapped up Owens’ nonsense. An estimated one billion people worldwide know of the story, causing the Macrons significant distress. 

In July, they fought back, taking the highly unusual step of filing a US defamation lawsuit, calling out Owens’ ‘verifiably false and devastating lies’ and pledging to provide pictures proving Madame Macron is a woman (the mind boggles). Even this is not enough for Owens, who has said she will demand that Macron undergoes a medical exam to prove her sex. Yes, this God-fearing truthseeker will only be happy when a 72-year-old lady is in stirrups, being confronted by a rubberglove-wearing doctor. Disgustingly, she adds: ‘We’re coming for her medical records.’ 

Let’s call this what it is: bullying, on a global scale.

It doesn’t matter whether your husband is the president or how much you’ve got in the bank. To know that millions are looking at your facial features, your figure, poring over your history, gossiping and sniggering? Horrible. 

Yet online bullies like Owens get away with it time and time again because they wrap themselves in the noble-sounding banner of ‘free speech’. In response to the lawsuit from the Macrons, Owens cried: ‘In contravention of a sacred precept of US Constitutional Law, the President and First Lady of France … have filed a baseless defamation suit against an independent American journalist.’ 

How predictable: the ‘sacred precept’ of free speech, which allows you to peddle whatever vile rubbish you like. 

Owens is just one of many who interpret freedom of speech as the freedom to spout nonsense, to ruin reputations, to hurt whomever you want. Another American controversialist who called upon the free speech defence was Alex Jones, who insisted the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school massacre – in which 20 children and six staff were killed – was a hoax, causing incalculable distress to the families involved. 

Imagine: you lose your child, you are drowning in grief, and some red-faced ranter is telling the world it’s all lies. 

In July, Brigitte and Emmanuel Macron fought back, taking the highly unusual step of filing a US defamation lawsuit, calling out Owens’ ‘verifiably false and devastating lies’

Meanwhile, no doubt Owens will stand in court and – with proud, patriotic fervour – talk about her First Amendment right to free speech. She’ll cast herself as a seeker of the truth, a good old-fashioned journalist who must be free to air her findings. 

But this, of course, is pure baloney. There is one big motivator for the peddling of nonsense on an industrial scale, and it is money. The more outlandish the claim, the more attention Owens gets. Controversy equals clicks. She has even sold merchandise including a ‘Man of the Year’ T-shirt featuring Brigitte Macron. 

The whole sorry saga speaks volumes about how easy it is to monetise bullying these days. Owens could have done great things. She’s eloquent, intelligent, beautiful, well connected. She was once feted by senior Republicans, including President Trump. She could have achieved high office herself, but is instead making a living by saying the French president’s wife once had a penis. A filthy business that’s making her filthy rich. 

In an ideal world, the Macrons’ lawsuit would be the humbling of Owens. She’d be forced to apologise, lose millions, lose face with all those toothless hillbillies who hang on her every word. 

Sometimes – rarely – the conspiracy theorists who ruin lives do pay for their viciousness. Alex Jones was found liable for defamation and was ordered to pay $965million (£870million) in damages to the families of the Sandy Hook victims. I doubt Owens will be made to pay in the same way. She’ll say she believed she was telling the truth, and cite her right to free speech. 

President Macron has admitted they were advised against bringing this case. They know they’ll probably lose – because in America, winning defamation cases against well known figures requires you to prove malice, not just that the person has lied. 

But, Macron claims, this is about ‘honour’. It’s about standing up to the bully, and I salute them for it. As for my claim that Owens is half human, half snake: OK, this is unverified . . . But, then again, can we really be sure that someone so devoid of feeling and compassion is 100 per cent human? 

Give ‘breast is best’ a rest, Penny 

 How kind of Penny Lancaster to donate breast milk to her stepgranddaughter when the baby’s mother, Kimberly (above with Penny) wasn’t producing enough and Penny was feeding her own baby son. Buthow tellingabout thecontinuing pressure to breastfeed, too. I have seen women pushed to the edge of madness by the ‘breast is best’mantra. Though Ibreastfedall four of mine, I never really enjoyed it. As my wise mother said: ‘To bond with someone you don’t need to put your nipple in their mouth.’ 

Why this picture’s a giveaway 

News of Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban’s split is sad, and surprising considering their frequent public displays of affection (PDAs). On red carpets they snogged and stroked like teenagers taking their first date to the back of a Fiat Uno. Maybe PDAs should be relabelled Pre-Divorce Alerts. 

Apparently, King Charles is ‘very concerned’ about the impact social media is having on young people. Too right. It is a mental health catastrophe. It is ruining children’s ability to relate, to concentrate, to feel happy in their own skin. It is peddling porn, violence, radical ideologies. When even the monarch – not known for being down with the kids on TikTok – is sounding the alarm, isn’t it time we banned social media for under-16s?