Candace Owens

Candace Amber Owens was born on April 29, 1989, in White Plains, New York, and grew up in Stamford, Connecticut. She was raised mostly by her mother and grandparents from around the age of 11 or 12, after her parents divorced. She is the third of four children. Her paternal grandfather was Robert Owens, an African American who was born in North Carolina. She is a graduate of Stamford High School in Connecticut. In 2007, while a 17-year-old senior at Stamford High School, Owens received three racist death threat voicemail messages, totaling two minutes, from a group of white male classmates which included the son of then-mayor and future Democratic governor Dannel Malloy. Owens's family sued the Stamford Board of Education in federal court, alleging that the city did not protect her rights, resulting in a $37,500 settlement in January 2008. Owens pursued an undergraduate degree in journalism at the University of Rhode Island. In 2022, she completed the requirements for a bachelor's degree at the University of Rhode Island under the name Candace A. Farmer, her married name at the time, and was listed among the university's graduates. After leaving college, she worked as an intern for Vogue magazine in New York. She took a job in 2012 as an administrative assistant for a private equity firm in Manhattan, later moving up to become its vice president of administration. == Early career ==

Degree180 and anti-conservative blog In 2015, Owens was CEO of Degree180, a marketing agency that offered consultation, production, and planning services that included a blog on a variety of topics In a 2015 column that Owens wrote for the site, she criticized conservative Republicans, writing about the "bat-shit-crazy antics of the Republican Tea Party"; she also added that "The good news is, they will eventually die off (peacefully in their sleep, we hope), and then we can get right on with the OBVIOUS social change that needs to happen, IMMEDIATELY." She was also critical of Donald Trump. In 2016, the blog featured an article mocking Donald Trump's penis size. Privacy violation, Gamergate, and political transformation Owens launched SocialAutopsy.com in 2016, a website she said would expose bullies on the Internet by tracking their digital footprint. According to The Daily Dot, "People from all sides of the anti-harassment debate were quick to criticize the database, calling it a public shaming list that would encourage doxing and retaliatory harassment." Both conservatives and progressives condemned the website. In response, people began posting Owens's private details online. With scant evidence, Owens blamed the doxing on progressives. Following that, she earned the support of conservatives involved in the Gamergate harassment campaign, including right-wing political commentators such as Milo Yiannopoulos and Mike Cernovich. Subsequently, Owens became a conservative, saying in 2017, "I became a conservative overnight ... I realized that liberals were actually the racists. Liberals were actually the trolls ... Social Autopsy is why I'm conservative." Kickstarter suspended funding for Social Autopsy, and the website was never created. == Conservative activism ==

By late 2017, Owens had started producing pro-Trump commentary and criticizing notions of structural racism, systemic inequality, and identity politicsall positions she herself had been publishing two years earlier. The name is a reference to the red pill and blue pill metaphor from the The Matrix franchise, often used by the manosphere, where taking the red pill shows its users the "truth." On November 21, 2017, at the MAGA Rally and Expo in Rockford, Illinois, Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk announced that Owens had been hired as the organization's director of urban engagement. Turning Point's hiring of Owens occurred in the wake of allegations of racism at Turning Point. While at Turning Point USA, Owens received the support of prominent figures in the Republican Party. President Trump called her a "very smart thinker", while Republican National Committee chair Ronna Romney McDaniel said at Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) "People like Candace Owens, like Charlie Kirk, we need more leaders like that." Ted Cruz expressed his admiration for Owens by jokingly suggesting in 2022 that she be appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States. In April 2018, Kanye West tweeted: "I love the way Candace Owens thinks." The tweet was met with derision on the part of many of West's fans. In May 2019, Owens hosted The Candace Owens Show on PragerU's YouTube channel. In April 2020, Owens announced her intention to either run for office in the U.S. Senate or to be a governor, and that she would only run against an incumbent Democrat, not a Republican. She did not reveal which specific office she would run for, or in which election cycle. The Daily Wire Owens left PragerU in 2020 to host Candace, a show on The Daily Wire. The show premiered on the platform on March 19, 2021. Its episodes were filmed in front of a live studio audience and aired weekly. Notable guests included Donald Trump, UFC president Dana White, and U.S. Representative Jim Jordan. Jeremy Boreing announced Owens would be leaving The Daily Wire in March 2024, a move believed to be related to a string of comments considered to be antisemitic, culminating in Owens liking a tweet referencing blood libel. There had also been months of tensions with co-host Ben Shapiro and other Daily Wire staff. BLEXIT Foundation The original Blexit movement was started in 2016 by Me'Lea Connelly to achieve Black economic independence by encouraging Black Americans to leave the traditional financial systems that have historically disadvantaged the Black community. Owens co-founded an unrelated BLEXIT Foundation along with former Tucson police officer Brandon Tatum. In late 2018, Owens launched the BLEXIT Foundation, which featured a social media campaign to encourage ethnic minorities, including African Americans and Latinos, to leave the Democratic Party and register as Republicans. At the time, 8% of black Americans identified as Republicans. After an apology, West continued to support Owens . In 2023, BLEXIT Foundation merged with Turning Point USA, the non-profit organization for which Owens had formerly worked. Product promotion In July 2021, Owens announced the launch of a device named the Freedom Phone, which sold for $500, was marketed toward Trump supporters and which she claimed was "not controlled by Apple or Google". The device's launch was criticized by tech publications for a lack of transparency about the device, as well as security concerns. The device was later revealed to be a white-label version of the Umidigi A9 Pro, a Chinese smartphone available for $120, and promoted it on her social media accounts that October. The bank shut down in November after failing to secure additional funding. It had over 3.8 million subscribers as of February 2025. In February 2025, she announced working on a media series titled "Harvey Speaks" on Harvey Weinstein. She said she had been in contact with him by phone since his second conviction. Owens has said Weinstein was "wrongfully convicted" of rape and sexual assault. ==Political views==

Owens said she had no interest in politics whatsoever before 2015, but previously identified as liberal. In October 2018, she said that she had never voted and had only recently become a registered Republican. She added that the left is "destroying everything through this cultural Marxist ideology". and New York magazine and the Columbia Journalism Review have described her as "right-wing". Multiple media outlets have called Owens a far-right commentator. She was influenced by the works of Ann Coulter, Milo Yiannopoulos, Ben Carson, and Thomas Sowell. Anti-black racism and Black Lives Matter Owens is known for her criticism of the Black Lives Matter movement, and has described Black Lives Matter protesters as "a bunch of whiny toddlers, pretending to be oppressed for attention". Owens has argued that African Americans have a victim mentality, often referring to the Democratic Party as a "plantation", She has also argued that the American Left likes "black people to be government-dependent", and that black people have been brainwashed to vote for Democrats. especially when compared to other issues facing black Americans, such as black-on-black crime and illiteracy rates. When asked if it was problematic that white supremacist groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), support Trump, Owens answered that antifa was more prevalent than the KKK. In a 2019 hearing on hate crimes, Owens referred to the KKK as a "Democrat terrorist organization". After the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, Owens said that concern over rising white nationalism was "stupid". In 2018, Owens dismissed reports of a resurgence in hate crimes, saying "All of the violence this year primarily happened because of people on the left." in West Palm Beach, Florida, December 22, 2018 During her April 2019 testimony before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on the rise of hate crimes and white supremacists in the United States, Owens made the claim that the Southern strategy employed by the Republican Party to increase political support among white voters in the South by appealing to racism against African Americans was a "myth" that "never happened". This was disputed by several historians who said that the existence of the Southern strategy was well documented in contemporaneous sources dating back to the Civil Rights era, with historian Kevin M. Kruse, who writes critically about modern conservatism, calling Owens' statement "utter nonsense". In June 2019, Owens said that African Americans had it better in the first 100 years after the abolition of slavery in the United States than they have since, and that socialism was at fault. In June 2020, Owens claimed that George Soros paid people to protest the murder of George Floyd, later claiming on Tucker Carlson's show Tucker Carlson Tonight that he did so to "destabilize" America, which the Anti-Defamation League said featured a common antisemitic trope. Shortly afterwards, she argued that George Floyd "was not a good person. I don't care who wants to spin that." She said: "The fact that he has been held up as a martyr sickens me." In a Facebook video that garnered nearly 100 million views, Owens called Floyd a "horrible human being", citing his criminal record, and called racial biases among police a "fake narrative". On April 20, 2021, Owens claimed that the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former police officer who was convicted of murdering Floyd, was "mob justice". She added: "This was not a fair trial. No person can say this was a fair trial." Women's rights Owens is critical of feminism and embraces the "trad wife" phenomenon of traditional gender roles. She has described the #MeToo movement, an international movement against sexual harassment and sexual assault, as "stupid". Owens wrote that the movement was premised on the idea that "women are stupid, weak & inconsequential". Silverman responded: "It seems to me that by tweeting this, you would like to maybe make us feel badly. I'd say this is evidenced by effort to use our twitter handles so we would see. My heart breaks for you, Candy. I hope you find happiness in whatever form that takes." In her biography, Blackout: How Black America Can Make Its Second Escape from the Democrat Plantation, in the chapter "On Overcivilization – The Trend Towards Overcivilization", she talks about her view between civilization, in which she described as when basic rights and liberties have been ensured for all, and "overcivilization" in the following quote: In April 2022, she called The Walt Disney Company "child groomers and pedophiles" and called for the boycott of the company, after Disney announced its opposition to Florida House Bill 1557, officially known as the "Parental Rights in Education Act", and commonly described as the "Don't Say Gay" legislation. In May 2022, Owens falsely claimed on Twitter that the gunman involved in the Robb Elementary School shooting could be transgender and said that he was "cross-dressing". According to Owens, this was evidence that "there were plenty of signs that he was mentally disturbed". In June 2022, she described Drag Queen Story Hour as "child abuse", arguing that parents who take their children to a drag queen story hour "are underqualified to have children" and "should have their children taken away from them". In a January 2024 tweet, Owens accused transgender people of "mass drugging children" and claimed the "LGBTQ movement brought with it a sexual plague on our society". These comments were condemned by LGBTQ rights groups. Donald Trump celebrating Black History Month at the White House on February 27, 2020 Although in 2015 Owens posted anti-Trump and anti-conservative articles on her Degree180 blog, Owens has since characterized Trump as the "savior" of Western civilization. She registered as a Republican in 2018, after the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination. She objected to what she termed the "social lynching" of Kavanaugh, on the grounds that to "believe women" was the reason "our ancestors got lynched", as she told a journalist from Philadelphia magazine. She added: "No evidence, but believe all women." After Joe Biden won the 2020 U.S. presidential election and Trump refused to concede, Owens promoted Trump's claims of mass fraud, saying that "the American election was clearly rigged." In 2025, Owens called Trump "a chronic disappointment. And I feel embarrassed that I told people to go vote for him." Owens said Trump's bombing of Iran is "utterly deranged". Owens also criticized the Trump administration's decision to freeze $2.2 billion in federal funding for Harvard University after sending a list of demands for student programming. "I never thought that I would see a day where I would be rooting for a university above Donald J. Trump and his administration," she said. "But I don't recognize this administration right now. I don't recognize what's happening," said Owens. Immigration Owens is a proponent of the Mexico–United States border wall, and believes illegal immigrants to the United States should be immediately deported. Science Owens has described science as a "pagan faith" and expressed interest in pseudoscientific conspiracy theories such as flat Earth. She stated, "I'm not a flat-earther. I'm not a round-earther. Actually, what I am is I am somebody who has left the cult of science". Climate change In July 2018, Owens claimed that global warming is not real, calling it a lie used to "extract dollars from Americans". In 2021, she promoted paid ads on Facebook, calling the U.S. government "modern doomsayers" who have been wrongly predicting climate crises for decades. Welfare Owens has expressed a critical stance on welfare programs, arguing that they can create dependency and discourage self-reliance among recipients. She believes that welfare reform is necessary to promote individual responsibility and empower individuals to break free from government assistance. Owens has said that welfare is a Democratic Party tool to keep black Americans dependent upon the government. She was responding to an audience member who asked for a "long-term prognosis" about the terms "globalism" and "nationalism". Owens said: Following heavy criticism for her comments, Owens clarified them on Twitter and in a Judiciary Committee hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives in February 2019. Owens said that "[Hitler] was a homicidal, psychopathic, maniac that killed his own people" and "[Hitler] was not a nationalist, [he] murdered his own people; a nationalist would not kill their own people". She said that the point of her comments was to say that there is "no excuse or defense ever for ... everything that [Hitler] did". She also said that her comments were about Hitler's crimes against Jews. She concluded this testimony by stating her opinion Lieu was "assuming that black people will not pursue the full two hour clip" and that the full clip had been "purposefully extracted" in order to "create a different narrative". Donald Trump Jr. praised Owens on Twitter for "[calling] out the Dems on their purposeful manipulation of facts for their narrative". Holocaust denial Owens has expressed interest in Holocaust denial. In July 2024, Owens released an episode of the Candace show on YouTube entitled "Literally Hitler. Why Can't We Talk About Him?" During this episode, Owens criticized mainstream narratives regarding Nazi Germany, saying that education about the Nazis was indoctrination comparable to "Soviet tactics". Owens further denied that Nazi medical experiments were carried out by Josef Mengele on concentration camp inmates, claiming the fact that such experiments occurred was "bizarre propaganda. The idea that they just cut a human up and then sewed them back together. Why would you do that? Even if you're the most evil person in the world, that's a tremendous waste of time and supplies." Owens referred to the Holocaust as "an ethnic cleansing [that] almost took place", while criticizing the expulsion of Germans after World War II, saying the Allies "actually did [an ethnic cleansing]". Support for Kanye West On October 3, 2022, during Adidas Yeezy SZN 9 fashion show in Paris, Owens posed for a photo with Kanye West wearing a matching shirt with the "WHITE LIVES MATTER" slogan. During Paris Fashion Week, West entered negotiations with Owens's husband, the CEO of social networking service Parler, to purchase the website. After West posted tweets declaring he would "go Death Con 3 on Jewish people"; Owens defended West, stating that "if you are an honest person, you did not find this tweet antisemitic". Owens further accused the Anti-Defamation League of instigating antisemitism following the organization's criticism of West and Kyrie Irving. Owens's comments were made before West praised Adolf Hitler in an InfoWars interview. After the interview, Parler announced that West had canceled his plans to buy the website. Rabbi Shmuley Boteach has repeatedly criticized Owens for her friendship with West. Owens condemned Boteach as a "monster", stating that "any person who defends him or his hag daughter is immediately suspicious." Owens has also claimed that in Hollywood, there is "a small ring of specific people who are using the fact that they are Jewish to shield themselves from any criticism" and that this ring "appears to be something that is quite sinister". In March 2024, Owens liked a tweet asking Boteach if he was "drunk on Christian blood again", an apparent reference to the antisemitic blood libel accusation. The Daily Wire announced they were ending their association with Owens a few days after Owens liked the tweet. Jews and Judaism Following her departure from the Daily Wire after she was accused of antisemitism, Owens downplayed the prevalence of antisemitism, stating that "people who are now screaming 'antisemitism is everywhere!' are actually just racial supremacists." According to Media Matters, Owens criticized Jordan Peterson for calling far-right commentator Nick Fuentes a "psychopathic rat" after Fuentes tweeted that Jews control the Biden administration. Owens suggested that Fuentes could be correct based on the number of Jewish officials appointed to the Biden administration, saying that "it seems a weird tweet for [Peterson] to be so disturbed about." Owens further referred to Fuentes as having "a very long background of focusing his attention on Israel and Zionism, and that's what he is reacting to". Fuentes had previously praised Owens, saying she was waging "a full-fledged war against the Jews". Owens falsely claimed in an interview with Tristan Tate, brother of Andrew Tate, that Joseph Stalin was Jewish, and that Sigmund Freud and Stalinists were part of a Jewish cabal. Owens claimed that Freud studied Kabbalah and promoted pedophilia through psychoanalysis. In July 2024, Owens suggested that Ashkenazi Jews trace their origin to Khazars and are not related to "biblical Jews". According to her, descendants of Khazars were "so immoral and so corrupt" that they were forced to convert to Judaism by Persians and Russians in the eighth century. However, they did not "meaningfully convert" and "carried on their corruption, carried on their sexual deviancy". She suggested that "their religious teachings tell them to infiltrate everywhere" and "[their] elites are disgusting, despicable people". Owens implied that the war in Ukraine is linked to the Khazars' desire to seek revenge on Russia and Iran. She went on to blame instances of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church on them. During a live broadcast on August 18, 2024, Owens claimed that Leo Frank, a Jewish businessman who was wrongly convicted of murder and lynched in the US state of Georgia in 1915, had killed Mary Phagan as part of a ritual murder on Passover, again referencing blood libel. Owens further claimed there existed a "Frankish Cult...masquering behind Jews" that engages in pedophilia and incest "as sacramental rites". She stated that there are "tens of thousands of pedophiles [who] hide from justice in Israel". Owens's father-in-law Lord Farmer has publicly repudiated her repeated antisemitic remarks. Owens was disinvited from a Trump campaign fundraiser in the summer of 2024 following criticism from Jewish groups. In June 2024, Owens criticized the Antisemitism Awareness Act that was passed by the United States House of Representatives a month before, which she said violated individuals' First Amendment rights. There is no evidence that AIPAC had anything to do with the assassination of President Kennedy. Owens has used this false assertion of the involvement of Jews in the transatlantic slave trade to encourage hatred of Jews among African-Americans. During her YouTube show, Owens stated: "Your quarrel is not with white men . . wake up and learn the true history of slavery because that was not exactly a white man sport. OK. Jewish people were the ones that were trading us. Jewish people were in control of the slave trade. . . Because of Owens' antisemitic statements, she was named "Antisemite of the Year" by StopAntisemitism, a title which she celebratorily accepted on her YouTube channel. Satire website The Babylon Bee has published several articles mocking Owens for her antisemitism. In response, Owens referred to the website as the "Babylonian Talmudic Bee" and accused it of "worshipping Israel". In February 2026, Owens praised General Order No. 11, a command issued by General Ulysses Grant during the American Civil War expelling Jews from his military district. This order was overturned by Abraham Lincoln and was later repudiated by Grant. Owens said that "Jewish supremacists had everything to do with the Civil War in America. They excel at creating the false dialectic, the North versus the South, the left versus the right." Israel and Palestine Owens is a critic of Israel and was increasingly critical of the country during the Gaza war. In October 2023, she condemned an Israeli strike on a Christian church in Gaza that resulted in the deaths of Christians, tweeting, "I have been disgusted by the propagandists pretending a Christian church was not bombed. Christians were killed. No Christian should stay silent." She later added, "If you think it's antisemitism to notice that innocent Christians were killed in an IDF bombing, then you need to log off." Clarifying her views in early November, Owens tweeted "No government anywhere has a right to commit a genocide, ever." In 2024, Owens accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of killing children, calling Israel's actions "a holocaust that is being committed on Palestinian children and women". COVID-19 pandemic and vaccination In April 2020, Owens said that COVID-19 deaths were overcounted; health experts said that it was more likely that COVID-19 deaths were undercounted. Regarding a COVID-19 vaccine, she said in June 2020 that "under no circumstances will I be getting any #coronavirus vaccine that becomes available. Ever. No matter what." She also referred to Bill Gates as a "vaccine-criminal", and said that he and the World Health Organization (WHO) used "African & Indian tribal children to experiment w/ non-FDA approved drug vaccines". On August 8, 2021, Owens said in a Facebook post: "I still have not received the COVID-19 vaccine and have not demanded that any of my employees get it either. I am proud that I committed myself to standing firm against the bribery, media propaganda, coercion, celebrity-peer pressure campaign, plus censorship... It is isn't easy to swim against such a polluted current but here I am. I trust my gut much more than trust Dr. Fauci." Also in August, Owens claimed that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) proposed "putting high risk people into camps to 'shield' low risk people from them". In 2021, Owens attracted media attention when she stated that the United States should "invade Australia", saying that Australia had turned into a tyrannical Nazi-style police state due to its public health precautions against COVID-19. Owens said that the comments were made "in jest" and that they had been misinterpreted by the media. Owens has promoted misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines. In a December 2021 interview, she asked Donald Trump about vaccine mandates, and he explained that he shared her views on mandates but said that "the vaccine is one of the greatest achievements of mankind". He added: "The ones that get very sick and go to the hospital are the ones that don't take the vaccine. But it's still their choice. And if you take the vaccine, you're protected. Look, the results of the vaccine are very good, and if you do get it, it's a very minor form. People aren't dying when they take the vaccine." In December 2022, Owens promoted the anti-vaccine film Died Suddenly. Russia and Ukraine In 2022, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Owens promoted a quote by Russian president Vladimir Putin which included the false assertion that the USSR created the modern country of Ukraine. Her views have received support and amplification from the Embassy of Russia, Washington, D.C., particularly following her tweet stating "Russian lives matter". In March 2022, Owens faced criticism from historian Anne Applebaum for claiming that Ukraine "wasn't a thing until 1989" and dismissing the notion of a Russian-led genocide in the country, prompting Applebaum to label Owens as ignorant of history. In December 2022, Owens faced backlash and fact-checking on social media after making unfounded claims about Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy's wife Olena Zelenska, with Twitter users debunking her allegations and highlighting the lack of evidence. In a 2023 interview, Owens said "I'm very much a person who has said from the very beginning, 'Fuck Ukraine', you know, and I stand by that" while discussing her opposition to American military aid to Ukraine. In 2024, Owens inaccurately claimed that Zelensky is gay and said she did not want Ukraine to win against Russia, stating that "No amount of media brainwash in the world could ever make me hope that Zelensky triumphs over an orthodox Russia. Spiritually, I just know that's wrong. You simply do not support a homosexual actor that is locking up churches and bishops." == Legal issues ==

Kimberly Klacik lawsuit During an Instagram livestream on June 22, 2021, Owens accused former Republican congressional candidate Kimberly Klacik of money laundering, tax fraud, illegal drug use, and misusing campaign funds. Owens also said that Klacik is a "madame" who recruits strippers for a strip club owned by her husband. Owens said she found out about this after talking with a woman who claimed to have worked as a stripper at Klacik's strip club. Klacik denied the allegations and repeatedly asked for Owens to take down the video, which she refused to do. Macron lawsuit On July 23, 2025, French president Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte Macron, sued Owens and her limited liability company for numerous counts of defamation and false light in Delaware state court because Owens had been publicly claiming, since March 2024, that Brigitte Macron was a biological man named Jean-Michel Trogneux. In an interview with Tucker Carlson published August 1, 2025, Owens said she had received a phone call from President Donald Trump the preceding February, and that he had asked her to stop speaking on the topic. The Macrons are suing for punitive damages and have claimed that they have suffered "substantial economic damages" such as the loss of business opportunities. "This has become so widespread in the United States that we had to react," Macron said. Owens has told listeners she will "stake her entire professional reputation on this" and "On behalf of the entire world, I will see you in court." On November 22, 2025, Candace Owens tweeted that she had "credible enough" claims from a French government official that Macron had ordered members of the National Gendarmerie Intervention Group to assassinate her. Owens referenced the Charlie Kirk assassination several times, claiming "this person claims that Charlie Kirk's assassin trained with the French legion 13th brigade", and "To the brave official in France who did this because they were so moved by the evil of Charlie's public execution to risk their own life— May God bless you." Owens said that an Israeli operative was part of the alleged assassination squad. Owens did not provide evidence to verify her claims. Other In October 2020, Owens sued Lead Stories and USA Today after they fact-checked Facebook posts she had made downplaying the COVID-19 pandemic, alleging their articles had led to her being unable to obtain advertising revenue from her Facebook page and the termination of a deal with Facebook to advertise her book Blackout. Owens created a website to solicit donations for the lawsuit. The lawsuit was dismissed in July 2021, with the judge ruling that her posts contained COVID-19 misinformation. == Controversies ==

Dispute with family of Mollie Tibbetts In August 2018, Owens had a dispute with Sam Lucas, cousin of Mollie Tibbetts, who had been murdered by Cristhian Bahena Rivera, a 24-year-old Mexican illegal immigrant. Tibbetts's cousin said that Owens had exploited Tibbetts's death for "political propaganda". Owens responded by describing Lucas's criticism as a "strange" attack on Trump supporters. Later that month, the University of Iowa's chapter of Turning Point USA criticized Owens for "public harassment" towards a member of Tibbetts's family, and the executive board members of the chapter all resigned in protest. Promotion of conspiracy theories Owens has been criticized for promoting conspiracy theories, including expressing the belief that the Moon landings did not happen,, calling them "fake and gay". Addressing a 2022 tweet about the Moon landing being "faked", Owens stated on comedian Bill Maher's Club Random podcast that she does not know or care enough about the Moon landing to call it a hoax, stating that she has "never cared about the topic". In 2024, Owens hosted conspiracy theorist Bart Sibrel on her podcast to further promote the theory that the Moon landing was faked. Owens has appeared on fringe conspiracy websites, such as InfoWars. After authorities arrested a 56-year-old suspect who was a registered Republican and Trump supporter, Owens deleted her tweet without explanation. In March 2024, Owens endorsed the conspiracy theory that Brigitte Macron, wife of French president Emmanuel Macron, was secretly transgender. Owens stated: "After looking into this, I would stake my entire professional reputation on the fact that Brigitte Macron is in fact a man. Any journalist or publication that is trying to dismiss this plausibility is immediately identifiable as establishment. (...) The implications here are terrifying." In 2025, Owens released a multi-part video miniseries titled Becoming Brigitte, which promoted the conspiracy theory. She also promoted the book by investigative journalist Xavier Poussard, Devenir Brigitte (Becoming Brigitte in its English publication), which became a bestseller on Amazon. Owens further claimed that Brigitte Macron, under a male identity, had been a study participant in the Stanford prison experiment as part of an alleged CIA mind-control program. Mention in shooters' manifestos Brenton Harrison Tarrant, the terrorist who committed the Christchurch mosque shootings, produced a manifesto prior to committing the shootings in which he wrote that Owens had "influenced [him] above all". According to journalist Robert Evans, it was "possible, even likely", that Tarrant was a fan of Owens, considering her rhetoric against Muslim immigrants but that, in context, his references to her may have been an example of "shitposting" intended to provoke political conflict. For instance, the line "Though I will have to disavow some of [Owens's] beliefs, the extreme actions she calls for are too much, even for my tastes" was assessed by The Root as trolling. Hours after the shootings, Owens posted a tweet in reaction to allegations that she inspired the mass murder, saying that she never created any content espousing her views on the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution or Islam. Her tweet was criticized as "glib" when it was reported that she actually had posted tweets about the Second Amendment and Islam. Planned 2024 Australasian tour In late August 2024, Owens announced plans for a speaking tour of five Australian cities and the New Zealand city of Auckland in November 2024. In response, local Jewish groups including the Zionist Federation of Australia, the Anti-Defamation Commission, Dayenu, and the Holocaust Centre called for the Australian and New Zealand governments to deny Owens entry due to her anti-Semitic views and remarks. Annetta Able, who survived Mengele's experiments, said that Owens's denial of Nazi medical experiments "is not just deeply offensive, it is a dangerous distortion of historical truth that I witnessed with my own eyes." New Zealand Acting Race Relations Commissioner Saunoamaali'i Dr Karanina Sumeo criticised Owens's Holocaust denial and said that "freedom of expression must be balanced against people's right to be free from discrimination, the right to safety and security, and the right to religious freedom and belief." stating "From downplaying the impact of the Holocaust with comments about Mengele through to claims that Muslims started slavery, Candace Owens has the capacity to incite discord in almost every direction...." In November 2024, Owens was barred from entering New Zealand after her entertainer's work permit was refused, with the cited reason being that visas could not be granted to those excluded from another country. However, on December 12, following a request by Owens for Ministerial Intervention, New Zealand's Associate Immigration Minister Chris Penk reversed Immigration New Zealand's decision to deny her a work visa. It was later reported that the advocacy group Free Speech Union had lobbied Penks into reversing Immigration New Zealand's decision to bar Owens entry into New Zealand. Charlie Kirk assassination In the weeks following the September 2025 assassination of Charlie Kirk in Utah, Owens questioned aspects of the investigation on her podcast, suggesting that Tyler Robinson did not act alone in killing Kirk. Owens initially suggested, without evidence, that Utah politician Phil Lyman, who was attending the event at which Kirk was assassinated, was connected to a conspiracy to kill Kirk. This accusation was denounced by Governor of Utah Spencer Cox, Lyman's former opponent. Owens has implied, without explicitly stating, that an Israeli conspiracy was responsible for Kirk's death. Several organizations and media outlets criticized Owens's comments as promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories, while her supporters defended her right to raise questions. To support her claims, Owens released several private text messages from Kirk, showing that Kirk, a vocal supporter of Israel, had in private showed more ambivalence towards Israel and Zionist activists. These include, most notably, texts from a WhatsApp group chat in which Kirk remarks to coworkers "[he has] no choice but to leave the pro-Israel cause", around 48 hours prior to his death. Owens has also accused the Egyptian and French governments of playing a part in the assassination, claiming that Egyptian airplanes were stalking Erika Kirk. Owens claimed to have had a dream in which Charlie Kirk told her he had been betrayed. Owens claimed the dream was an example of her "prophetic vision" and "female intuition" which would lead her to the truth about Kirk. During an interview with Elle Reeve, Owens inaccurately claimed that messages written by Robinson that were released to the public were Discord messages, when they were in fact text messages. Owens claimed these messages were fabricated by the federal government, while admitting she had not read the federal indictment of Robinson. Owens would further suggest that unspecified members of Turning Point USA were complicit in Kirk's assassination. In an interview with CBS, Erika Kirk, the widow of Charlie Kirk, condemned conspiracy theories regarding her husband's death as a "mind virus". She reported that conspiracy theorists who believed she was complicit in the assassination had sent death threats to her and Turning Point USA staff members. Kirk told Owens "Stop. That's it. That's all I have to say. Stop." In December 2025, Owens agreed to speak with Kirk in a meeting arranged by Megyn Kelly. Owens and Kirk spoke for four and a half hours in what Kirk called a "very productive conversation". However, Owens later said she still believed Tyler Robinson was not the assassin, declaring "I did not recant" her prior allegations against Turning Point USA. On January 27, 2026, Owens released alleged leaked audio on her podcast of a Turning Point USA meeting involving Erika Kirk and employees. During the audio, she is heard calling Charlie's memorial "the event of the century", discussing merch sales, and encouraging employees to continue the work but grieve as needed. Owens responds to the clip stating, "It is the general tone that is off-putting. It's the laughter that is off-putting. "We are not even weeks after watching your husband be assassinated. We're talking about numbers and metrics that have been hit." She released a video call the following day, January 28, where Erika claimed their team is "family" and reassured them of their job security. In February 2026, Owens released her series Bride of Charlie which digs into the personal life of Erika Kirk and her extended family, including her mother Lori Frantzve. == Personal life ==

Owens met British politician, entrepreneur and media personality George Farmer, the son of Lord Farmer, in December 2018 at the launch event for Turning Point UK, a conservative student organization. The two became engaged in 2019 and were married in August that year at the Trump Winery in Charlottesville, Virginia. Numerous guests were present at the ceremony, including Larry Elder and Charlie Kirk. Owens gave birth to a boy in January 2021, a girl in July 2022, and two more boys in late 2023 and May 2025, respectively. Religious views In April 2024, Owens converted from the Reformed Evangelical Protestant denomination of Christianity, to Catholicism, the denomination of her husband. She was also baptized in the Brompton Oratory. ==Bibliography==

• The Greatest Lie Ever Sold (documentary, 2022) • A Shot in the Dark (documentary, 2023) • Convicting a Murderer (documentary, 2023) • Lady Ballers (2023) • Surrounded (2025) • In Whose Name? (2025) ==Notes==