A Delaware judge dismissed Candace Owens from the Macrons' defamation suit and left her companies in the case.

Dismissal of the person is not a ruling that the statements were true, and it is not the end of the lawsuit. The companies are still defendants. AFP described the French clock as a three-month rule with a possible one-year extension. The order instead tells the remaining parties to brief which of those two French timelines controls.

Judge Sheldon K. Rennie of the Delaware Superior Court decided on Oct. 27, 2026, a defense motion to dismiss or strike the amended complaint in Emmanuel Macron and Brigitte Macron v. Candace Owens, Candace Owens LLC, and Georgetom, Inc., case N25C-07-194 SKR. The opinion says the motion was submitted July 27, 2026. It says the motion is granted in part and denied in part. It says the motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction is granted solely as to Candace Owens, and that she is dismissed from the action. It says a forum-non-conveniens motion by the remaining entity defendants is denied. It says a motion to strike the amended complaint is denied. It says a final ruling on a separate motion to dismiss, under the rule that tests whether a complaint states a claim, is deferred pending more briefing on foreign law. The opinion says the court has determined that French law supplies the governing time limit under Delaware's borrowing statute, 10 Del. C. § 8121, and it orders the remaining parties to brief whether France's three-month baseline statute of limitations or a one-year framework applies to the allegations. That order does not pick which French clock controls. The Independent reported Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026, that Rennie found in a Tuesday order that his court lacked jurisdiction over Owens, who lives in Tennessee, and that the case against Candace Owens LLC and Georgetom Inc. can continue for now because both are registered in Delaware. AFP reported the same Tuesday ruling, spelled the second company GeorgeTom Inc., and quoted the judge: "The Court finds that it lacks personal jurisdiction over Ms Owens individually." The opinion's caption spells the company GEORGETOM, INC. Georgetom, GeorgeTom, and GEORGETOM are three spellings of one defendant.

The reasons in the opinion are procedural. It says the plaintiffs did not attempt service under the applicable consent statutes, which it calls a fatal defect, and that even if service had been attempted, Owens's status as a manager of a Delaware limited liability company is not enough, by itself, to establish the minimum contacts required for an out-of-state tort claim. It says she is a Tennessee resident. AFP reported the Delaware court did not have jurisdiction because her residence was in another state, Tennessee, and AFP wrote that if the Macrons eventually win, her personal assets would be shielded. That asset line is AFP's account of what the dismissal means. It is not a sentence in the order dismissing her. The Independent reported Rennie put off ruling on the motion to dismiss until the parties briefed him further on how French defamation law and statutes of limitation intersect with U.S. law. The order did rule on jurisdiction. It dismissed her. The part it put off is the limitations briefing for the defendants who remain. AFP reported the judge said France's statute of limitations would apply, normally three months in defamation cases, with a possible extension of up to one year in special cases. The order's briefing instruction names a three-month baseline and a one-year framework and does not say an extension has been granted.

AFP reported Emmanuel Macron and Brigitte Macron filed the lawsuit in July 2025 against Owens and two companies, accusing her of false claims that the French president's wife is a transgender woman. The July 27, 2026, date on the opinion is the date the motion was submitted, not the filing date AFP reported. The Independent reported the Macrons sued over what they called a lie-filled "campaign of global humiliation," including the claim that France's first lady was born a male. The Independent reported that among the claims the Macrons called lies was that Brigitte Macron, 72, was born Jean-Michel Trogneux, the name of her older brother. The Independent reported Owens thanked the judge in a social media statement and said the case "represents one of the grossest, legal overreaches by a foreign government leader in human history." AFP reported she welcomed the ruling in a statement on X and printed the same sentence without the comma after "grossest." The Independent reported the lawsuit focuses on an eight-part podcast, "Becoming Brigitte," which it said has more than 2.3 million YouTube views. Those are the plaintiffs' allegations and her response. They are not findings that any statement was true or false.

The French cases the two outlets described are not the same date. The Independent reported that in September, Brigitte Macron won a lawsuit in a French court against two women who had spread rumors about her gender, that an appeals court overturned that decision this month, and that she has appealed to France's highest court. AFP reported two women were convicted in September 2024 after a YouTube video in December 2021 alleged she had once been a man named Jean-Michel Trogneux, whom AFP said is actually her brother. September 2024 and a September the Independent did not year-stamp, in an Oct. 28, 2026, story, are not the same month on the page. This Delaware order does not decide those French cases. It also does not decide whether the words sued on in Delaware were defamatory. Owens is out of this suit as an individual defendant. The two companies are still in it, and the time-limit question is still open. This is a civil defamation case. It is not a criminal charge. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.