It's quite a business model Candace Owens seems to have going. She uses her podcast to accuse people of things then (allegedly) refuses to make corrections when corrected. The result is that she keeps getting sued by people.
Last year it was the Macrons who sued her over her claims that the French First Lady was actually a man. This year there have been two additional lawsuits, one by Charlie Kirk's former head of security, Brian Harpole, and one filed last week by a bystander named Robert Hild Jr.
In order to set the stage, here's a video compilation of some of what Owens has been saying about Hild on her show.
🚨BREAKING: Candace Owens is being sued by a private citizen she spent months casting as a suspect in Charlie Kirk's assassination. Robby Hild was in the crowd at UVU, 15–20 yards from the stage. The lawsuit is absolutely damning: - The indictment says the suspect walked onto campus at ~11:51 a.m. in the black flag shirt seen in the FBI's stairwell photos. A friend's video shows Hild in the crowd at 11:52, in a gray T-shirt and shorts. - Days later, a friend posted selfies of them in that stairwell without Hild's consent. Owens showed the photo to millions, asked them to identify him, and said he resembled the FBI image "more so than Tyler Robinson does." - She called him "our goth suspect" from the "gothic underground." The goth photo was from a Halloween costume party. - She suggested he might be from overseas, floated a "hunch" about the Azov Battalion, and doubted "Robby Hild" was his true identity. If he were "just some kid who grew up in Washington and went to school in Utah," she said, her inbox would be flooded. That's exactly who he is. - Per the complaint, people did reach out. The woman who shot the 11:52 video of him in the crowd emailed her tip line to say she stood with him and he had "nothing to do with this." When Owens DMed the friend who was with him at the event, he replied twice with his number and offered his photos and videos. She ignored both. - On Oct. 2, an X account posted the 11:52 video with its metadata, publicly apologized to Hild, and tagged her. Per the complaint, Owens admitted to his roommate that she'd seen it. - She said she just wanted to "know where he was" and "check him off." His roommate told her where he was all day, and when asked if she'd apologize, she texted: "Apology for Rob Hild? Lol. I spoke to his roommate yesterday. He clarified nothing. I am still looking into him." In December, she told Piers Morgan she doesn't name people without "concrete evidence." According to the lawsuit, she had none. In April, she reopened her "investigation into Robby Hild" anyway and said his family was "married into the Robinsons." Per the complaint, he has no relation to Tyler Robinson and has never met him. When his lawyers contacted her, she offered to correct the Robinson claim. She never did. What Hild got, per the complaint: death threats, a doxxed family, a vandalized home and car, and months away from Utah after police advised him not to stay home. Tyler Robinson is headed to trial for Charlie's murder. Robby Hild was just a Charlie Kirk fan who came to hear him speak.
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) September 29, 2026
So you get the idea. She's making lots of insinuations that this person who was photographed at the event where Kirk was killed is somehow suspicious. Last week, Hild responded with a defamation claim.
Hild says he had nothing to do with the shooting. But he alleges in a new defamation lawsuit that podcaster Candace Owens has repeatedly told her audience of millions that Hild contributed to Kirk’s assassination, had ties to malicious foreign actors and was connected to a “gothic” and “communist” underground that she associated with the killing...
He and others have asked Owens to retract “the damaging falsehoods” she’s aired, the suit says, but she hasn’t done so. “Hild therefore brings this defamation action against Owens and her companies as the only remaining means of vindicating his reputation,” it says, “and protecting himself from further harm.”
Hild is seeking both compensatory and punitive damages.
The legal complaint against Owens goes into a lot more detail about how she alleged Hild was part of a gothic/communist underground based on a single photo.
Any reasonable person viewing the website containing the photograph of Hild Owen displayed would immediately recognize that the photograph was from a Halloween themed “goth prom” costume party hosted at the Velour Live Music Gallery a local venue in Provo, Utah—even advertising an opportunity to get a temporary tattoo at the event. Nothing on the website even remotely supports Owens’ assertion that Hild was part of a “goth underground.”
The word “underground” never appears on the website. No reasonable person would associate this venue or party as a “gothic underground.” No reasonable person would associate this venue or party as a “communist underground.”
Hild is not and has never been associated with a gothic underground or communist underground. Hild has no communist or socialist sympathies whatsoever.
Owens’ mischaracterization of the event as a “gothic underground” and a “communist underground” when the website plainly shows it was a themed costume and dance party demonstrates Owens’ refusal to consider readily available facts so she could sensationalize the story to increase viewership and generate profit, at Hild’s expense.
Eventually, Owens would name Hild as the person in the photo and would ignore repeated offers by people who knew him to tell her about him. "He’s allegedly, like I said, from Washington State. And no one personally can say, “I know this person.” How could that be? How could that be?" Owens said.
The statement that no one could personally identify Hild was false. C.B. sent a message several days prior indicating she knew Hild. Owens further failed to follow up with Broderick, who would have identified Hild. At least two individuals indicated in the Facebook post containing Episode 245 that they knew Hild. And Boyer also tried to email Owens, explaining that he knew Hild personally.
Owens thus used the false premise that nobody could identify Hild to convey to her audience that Hild is using an alias, that he is not really from Washington State, or and that he did not really attend school in Utah, all to further her narrative that he is a malicious foreign agent.
The whole point of Hild in her drama was for him to be mysterious. By pretending no one had spoken up to identify him she could maintain this ruse. In fact, she had just ignored most of the people who tried to contact her.
There's a lot more in the complaint but the bottom line is that months of insinuations and false claims about Hild had an impact.
In response to Defendants’ call to action for tips, Owens’ fans/followers posted the personal information of Hild and Hild’s family members on social media, including exposing their names and home addresses.
Law enforcement recommended that Hild and his roommates not stay at their homes.
One individual attempted to stalk Hild in person and documented his efforts to expose Hild’s location on social media.
Hild’s home and vehicle were vandalized.
Hild has dated his girlfriend for almost two years, beginning before the events described in this Complaint. Hild wants to marry his girlfriend, but he fears that doing so would expose his girlfriend (whose identity Owens’ and her audience have not yet exposed) to danger and harassment.
I'm not an attorney, but in this case Owens is accused of defamation of a private person, not a public figure. That should make this defamation case much easier to prove in court as the standard is lower for a private individual. All they have to prove is that Owens was negligent, and if the information in the complaint is true then they should be able to show that.
Of course Owens has lots of money for lawyers so this case will likely drag on for months.
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