A particularly bizarre strain of conspiracy theory holds that prominent female celebrities, including musicians, athletes, and political figures, are secretly transgender. In a Paris court on Monday, a French art dealer was among 10 people found guilty of online harassment for falsely claiming that France’s First Lady Brigitte Macron was born as a boy named Jean-Michel Trogneux, which is the name of her older brother.
The upset caused by public assertions about her gender led to a “deterioration of her health” and a “deterioration in her quality of life,” her daughter Tiphaine Auzière, a lawyer, told the court, according to the Guardian. Macron is also suing right-wing American podcaster Candace Owens for slander in US court for spreading these claims.
Bertrand Scholler, the cofounder of Paris art gallery 55 Bellechasse, was identified as one of the principal defendants due to his sizable social media following. He has more than 108,000 followers on X, where he announced on Tuesday that he would close the account for six months in compliance with an order from the court. He received a six-month suspended sentence, according to the New York Times, which notes that the court fined each defendant 600 Euros ($700) and ordered them to contribute to a total of 10,000 Euros (about $12,000) in compensation.
Also among the chief defendants were Delphine Jégousse, a medium and author also known as Amandine Roy, who also received a six-month suspended sentence, and novelist Aurélien Poirson-Atlan, who received an eight-month suspended sentence. All three must undergo online harassment awareness training and are barred from using X for six months.
Some of those found guilty had also characterized her relationship with her husband, French President Emmanuel Macron, as pedophilia. He was 15 when they met; she was his drama teacher and 39 at the time. She maintains that their relationship remained within legal bounds. She later divorced her husband and married Macron in 2007.
Scholler did not immediately answer an emailed request for comment on the court’s findings.
He founded the gallery in 2013 in partnership with Hans Mautner, opening outposts in Miami in 2016 and in Basel, Switzerland in 2019. The gallery’s current status is unclear; the website is still operational, but its last listed exhibition closed in June 2022. The most recent art fair listed is Art Market Budapest, from 2020; the gallery had previously participated in fairs including Art Russia in Moscow, Foto Fever in Paris, Contemporary Istanbul, the Seattle Art Fair, Art Market Hamptons, and Photo London.
Scholler also co-founded Frame, a small Basel satellite fair that launched in 2018 and had its last edition in 2020. In 2018 at Frame, 55 Bellechasse showed paintings by Jason Newsted, the bass player of heavy metal band Metallica.
“I am not dead,” reads Scholler’s last post on X. “And I will return, God willing.”
