By the time Candace Owens began publicly insisting that French president Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte were part of an international plot to assassinate her, most of the political world had stopped being surprised. This was, after all, the same woman who had already accused the First Lady of France of being secretly male, spent months fueling conspiracy theories about the murder of Charlie Kirk, and regularly turned pop-culture stories into pseudo-investigations for millions of rapt followers.

But even in the chaotic ecosystem of far-right media, Owens now stands apart—a self-manufactured juggernaut of rage, rumors, and conspiratorial performance art, with more cultural influence than many elected officials. She is the latest proof that in America’s fractured attention economy, outrage is the surest path to power.

How, though, did Candace Owens—once a bullied kid from Stamford, Connecticut, once a centrist Democrat, once a Vogue intern—become the most dangerous woman on the internet?

A Meteoric Rise Fueled by Outrage, Reinvention, and a Shrewd Understanding of Human Psychology

Owens calls her conspiracy obsessions “mind yoga”—but for her audience, they function more like a drug. Millions tune in to her podcast not to be informed, but to feel part of an elite inner circle that “knows the truth” while the rest of the world sleeps.

Her formula is simple, repeatable, and devastatingly effective:

Choose a trending story.

Ask questions laced with suspicion.

Declare the mainstream media is “hiding something.”

Repeat until the algorithm rewards her with virality.

It’s a model honed by the likes of Alex Jones and Tucker Carlson, but Owens adds a millennial influencer sheen—slick branding, pastel aesthetics, aspirational lifestyle imagery—to give extremism a deceptively glossy façade.

And it works. Her podcast has become the No. 1 show across platforms, averaging 3.5 million downloads an episode. Advertisers flock to her. Her husband, British financier George Farmer, boasts of 5-to-1 returns on ad dollars spent. Her brand merchandise—“Conspiracy Theorist” mugs, “We Don’t Know-Know, But We Know” sweaters—sells out routinely.

Scandal has only accelerated her ascent.

From Liberal Intern to Trump’s Protégé: The Radicalization of Candace Owens

Owens’ early story contains none of the hallmarks of a future MAGA icon. She was raised largely by her grandparents; she faced racist threats in high school; she started her career in fashion and corporate admin.

Her political pivot came in 2016 during her failed “Social Autopsy” Kickstarter—an anti-cyberbullying venture that liberals criticized as a doxxing tool. Owens, furious, blamed left-wing activists and announced she had “become a conservative overnight.”

Within months she was making YouTube sketches about “coming out as conservative,” railing against Black Lives Matter, and denouncing systemic racism as a con job.

Then she met Charlie Kirk.

Kirk, instantly dazzled by her rhetorical fire, hired her as Turning Point USA’s communications director. She exploded into the conservative mainstream—a fluent, sharp, charismatic Black woman rebuking progressive orthodoxy, beloved by Trump and Fox News.

Her 2018 comments seeming to suggest Hitler’s nationalism would have been “fine” if he hadn’t invaded Europe caused international uproar—but that, too, only boosted her profile.

By 2019, she was bigger than TPUSA. She left. By 2021, she had her own Daily Wire show.

By 2024, she was so controversial that even the Daily Wire cast her off.

The Macron Meltdown and the Turning Point Civil War

Owens’ spirals into conspiracy used to be fringe entertainment—then, in 2024 and 2025, they veered into something darker.

The Macron Defamation Lawsuit

Her obsessive claims that Brigitte Macron was secretly a man escalated into a full-scale defamation suit from the French president and first lady. Owens responded by accusing the Macrons of plotting her assassination—a claim firmly denied by French authorities.

The Charlie Kirk Conspiracies

But Owens crossed a new red line after Charlie Kirk’s assassination in September 2025.

She implied Turning Point employees orchestrated an “inside job.” She promised to “name names.” And she encouraged her followers to distrust TPUSA entirely.

This week, Kirk’s longtime producer Blake Neff publicly accused her of harassment, saying her obsessive posts had whipped fringe followers into dangerous mob behavior.

Owens is now at war with the very movement that made her—yet her fan base only grows hungrier for the next escalation.

The Most Dangerous Kind of Influencer: One Who Never Pays a Price

Owens’ trajectory echoes Alex Jones—until the moment Jones was crushed by a $1.4 billion Sandy Hook defamation judgment. Owens may face a similar fate: the Macron case alone could bankrupt her.

She has already asked her followers for $5 million in legal donations, hinting at financial distress.

But Owens has learned from Trumpism that consequence is optional if your supporters believe you are persecuted. Every lawsuit becomes proof of her martyrdom. Every debunked claim becomes evidence of a cover-up. Every backlash becomes content.

Her fans don’t want accuracy. They want adrenaline.

An Algorithmic Monster the Internet Can No Longer Contain

Owens is not simply a conspiracy theorist. She is a highly trained storyteller using:

emotional triggers

political resentment

parasocial intimacy

constant escalation

influencer aesthetics

and the architecture of Big Tech

to turn uncertainty into a lifestyle product.

She is the perfect avatar for the 2020s: polished, incendiary, self-righteous, entrepreneurial, nihilistic.

Whether she ever faces real consequences is unclear. But one thing isn’t:

Candace Owens didn’t just become powerful.
We built a digital world perfectly designed to make her inevitable.