Anti-LGBTQ+ MAGA darling Candace Owens denies that she’s a lesbian

This story originally appeared on Them.

In a dizzying few weeks of queer discourse, this one might take the cake: People online are speculating that influential right-wing pundit and conspiracy theorist Candace Owens is a lesbian.

For days now, we have reviewed an enormous influx of videos, social media posts, unverified rumors, and, of course, memes but cannot independently confirm the details contained in the most recent blog that seems to have intensified the latest public conjecture about Owens’ sexuality. However, the conversation became so loud in far-right circles — eliciting commentary by everyone from Alex Jones to Nick Fuentes to Laura Loomer —that Owens herself decided to respond. In a long post to X on September 30, she denied the speculation, and again renounced the claims in a livestream to her YouTube channel the same day.

“Of everything they’ve made up, this is the most deranged,” she wrote in response to a thread on the controversy by right-wing streamer Harrison H. Smith.

Owens has a lengthy history of vehement anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric throughout her career. She called same-sex marriage “a sin” in a 2024 interview with openly gay journalist Don Lemon, for example, and recently spread the false conspiracy theory that French First Lady Brigitte Macron is transgender to the point that she was hit with a defamation lawsuit. The disjuncture between the rumors around Owens’ sexuality and her public statements on LGBTQ+ topics has inspired similar online commentary as that currently circulating around Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, who was recently alleged to have had sexual relationships with two female staffers, despite her staunchly anti-LGBTQ+ voting record. Boebert has similarly denied that story, saying, “I’m not a lesbian or bisexual.”

But what exactly are people saying about Owens, where did the speculation begin, and what does Erika Kirk’s takeover of Turning Point USA after her husband’s assassination have to do with it? Read on to get a full breakdown of the conservative infighting that sparked this wave of online discourse.

Why are people saying Candace Owens is a lesbian?

Although people have posted errant speculation about Owens’ sexuality online for years, a lengthy thread on X posted by the content creator Esoteric Shaggyism on September 28 catalyzed the most recent and widespread round of public conjecture.

“Candace Owens is a lesbian who cheated on her husband George Farmer in 2022 with a woman,” the thread starts. The account goes on to allege that four data leaks that occurred in 2011 and 2016 connect several of Owens’ email accounts, including one from her time at the University of Rhode Island between 2007 and 2010, to dating app profiles in which the user lists a queer preference. According to the thread, the accounts are nearly 20 years old, meaning they would have been activated around the time Owens, now 37, turned 18 — the year she began attending the University of Rhode Island.

“This was before Candace was known, let alone before her birthday, location, and emails were public,” the thread claims. “Multiple have not been logged into for over 10-15 years and they were utilized for years. One account was logged into on January 12th, 2022, while she was married and had kids.”

One of the accounts has the username “Candamo429,” which the post calls “incredibly specific,” as Owens’ birthday is April 29 and email attached to it corresponds with the one used for a 2008 YouTube channel that allegedly contains videos including the conservative commentators voice, face, and name in the credits of a video. Another of the alleged dating app profiles, Cdot429, matches the username of a Flickr account and the email Cdotamber429, per the thread. Owens’ middle name is Amber.

Each of the alleged dating app profiles, per Esoteric Shaggyism, were billed as being solely oriented towards women, largely marking “lesbian” and, in one case, “bisexual” as identities. The viral post claims that three of the profiles were on the dating platform Fling, under usernames like LickyouinRI, collegefuck5, and cdot429. The profile, collegefuck5, per the thread, mentions being based in Kingston, Rhode Island, where the University of Rhode Island has its main campus, and was allegedly last logged into on January 14, 2022.

Them cannot independently confirm the veracity of these screenshots and leaks.

The rest of Esoteric Shaggyism’s post devolves from there, claiming that because Owens is “fundamentally lying about who she is,” she cannot be trusted to be a “serious threat to the powerful,” referring to her content criticizing Israel and her ongoing transvestigation of French First Lady Brigitte Macron.

The post speaks to a broader divide within American right-wing politics over the U.S. government’s support for Israel — a split that has only intensified in the wake of Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk’s assassination in September of last year. Owens has said that Israeli leadership has “genocidal ambitions against the Palestinians,” though her anti-Zionist political commentary is often intertwined with antisemitic rhetoric and language — a tendency that previously led to her departure from Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire in 2024. It is important to note that many pro-Palestinian organizers have stressed that anti-Zionism itself is not inherently antisemitic, and have condemned right-wing rhetoric like that espoused by Owens.

How have people reacted to the controversy?

After rapidly escaping containment from conservative social media, the allegations immediately spread like wildfire across LGBTQ+ corners of TikTok, Instagram, X, and basically anywhere else queer people online gather to mock conservative pundits and participate in online discourse.

“I hate gay Halloween what do you mean you’re Candace Owens at the Massachusetts COVID-conscious lesbian bar,” one person wrote on X.

But unfortunately, the discourse, much like a lot of internet discussion, has turned noxious as it intersects with other online drama of the week, including somehow looping in King Princess’ recently resurfaced comments about continuing to be a lesbian while occasionally sleeping with men.

“lesbian community lost king princess and gained candance owens in the span of a week let's stop the count,” one person wrote on X.

“candace owens still fucks men but yall are so quick to call her a lesbian while discounting KP self described identity its so weird,” another replied.

Some users have even, we regret to report, used the opportunity to post about how they’ve always found the right-wing poster attractive despite her politics. One posted slow-motion video of Owens laughing to sensual music on TikTok, captioning it, “oh??? A win for me I guess..,” adding “btw i don’t support her right wing grifting, i’ve always just thought she’s incredibly hot.”

Across X, as people debated whether or not Owens was hot and the quality of her theoretical “strap game,” voices of reason implored people to remember her right-wing politics and repeated attacks on queer and trans people.

“and here goes the ppl forgetting everything candace owens has said just bc they want her strap.. yall r so sad,” one person wrote.

“no backbone bc candace blew it out with her strap,” another person responded to the discourse.

“Didn’t Candace Owens always kind of give soft masc?” another person on TikTok wrote, adding, “Obviously I’m joking here. I don’t think anybody would actually care if Candace Owens was gay or not. I think it would just be another person in the list of Republicans that repressed their sexuality.”

What did Candace Owens say in response to the lesbian allegations?

Of course, given that the entire internet seems enraptured by the allegations, Owens had to respond.

“I just assume they are running out of ideas so they are now leaning into their own perversions,” she wrote on X on September 28. “This is the Epstein class we’re dealing with. I have to remind myself that the people pushing this sexually abuse children so fictionalizing these debased narratives come to them naturally.”

The same evening, after responding to the allegations on X, Owens livesteamed from her YouTube channel. The stream began with Owens summarizing a recent, withering Vanity Fair profile of Erika Kirk, the wife of Charlie Kirk who now heads the Turning Point USA organization.

Over the last year, following his death, Erika Kirk and Owens have had a growing and public political rift, which Owens frequently comments on in her livestreams. Owens has promulgated conspiracy theories that Charlie Kirk’s assassination involved multiple actors beyond Tyler Robinson, who was charged with the crime, even insinuating that the Israeli government may have been involved. There is no credible evidence for these claims.

“I’ve got to pay for what Turning Point does. I am the sole focus of that organization,” she began. “For the last year, you have been met with what feels like a billion-dollar campaign against me, that I was secretly in love with Charlie Kirk, that I wanted Charlie all to myself. I’m jealous of Erika. They all kept using the sentence, ‘she’s mad because Charlie chose Erika. She wanted to marry Charlie but Charlie chose Erica.’”

This all, according to Owens, leads us to the new speculation about her sexuality.

“New narrative now, the attacks are not landing,” she continued. “So someone sat down and said, ‘What if we say the exact opposite.’ And by golly, you guys, the narrative has indeed shifted and it is the exact opposite, because now I'm a cheating lesbian who is funded — this is just so crazy.” On the screen, she displayed a headline published on the Mystery Machine News substack reading, “Candace Owens: The Cheating Lesbian Funded By A Zionist.” That particular article claimed that Owens’ “hidden homosexuality” is a ploy to get her elected president of the United States by a Zionist federal agent so he can “blackmail her with a sex tape.”

“You have to laugh. These people are so lost,” Owens concluded. “I actually think they need to hire me, to go after me.”

Owens devoted only a short time to trying to explain the accounts highlighting in Esoteric Shaggyism’s post, claiming her 2008 YouTube account she set up to upload a video for a class was “hacked,” and that she is locked out of her Flickr account. But it is important to understand that she primarily seems to situate the allegations within a context of right-wing infighting over Turning Point USA, Israel, and Erika Kirk. Indeed, regardless of the veracity of these allegations, they seem to stem from an ecosystem of right-wing commenters and politicians eating their own, using the suggestion of queer sexuality to score points on each other.

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