[10] She was dismissed in March 2024 following a series of comments widely regarded as antisemitic, and months of tensions with co-host Ben Shapiro and other Daily Wire staff.
[17] In 2007, while a 17-year-old senior at Stamford High School, Owens received three racist death threat voicemail messages, totaling two minutes, from a group of white male classmates which included the son of then-mayor and future Democratic governor Dannel Malloy.
[21] Owens's family sued the Stamford Board of Education in federal court, alleging that the city did not protect her rights, resulting in a $37,500 settlement in January 2008.
[15][30] According to The Daily Dot, "People from all sides of the anti-harassment debate were quick to criticize the database, calling it a public shaming list that would encourage doxing and retaliatory harassment.
[15][30] Following that, she earned the support of conservatives involved in the Gamergate harassment campaign, including right-wing political commentators such as Milo Yiannopoulos and Mike Cernovich.
[30] Defunct Newspapers Journals TV channels Websites Other Congressional caucuses Economics Gun rights Identity politics Nativist Religion Watchdog groups Youth/student groups Miscellaneous Other By late 2017, Owens had started producing pro-Trump commentary and criticizing notions of structural racism, systemic inequality, and identity politics – all positions she herself had been publishing two years earlier.
[32] On November 21, 2017, at the MAGA Rally and Expo in Rockford, Illinois, Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk announced that Owens had been hired as the organization's director of urban engagement.
[49] "Blexit", a term originally coined by Me'Lea Connelly, is a portmanteau of "black" and "exit" that mimics Brexit, the word used to describe the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union.
[50][51][52] In late 2018, Owens launched a different BLEXIT[a] foundation,[53][54] which featured a social media campaign to encourage ethnic minorities, including African Americans and Latinos, to leave the Democratic Party and register as Republicans.
[59] In July 2021, Owens announced the launch of a device named the Freedom Phone, which sold for $500, was marketed toward Trump supporters and which she claimed was "not controlled by Apple or Google".
[80] Owens has argued that African Americans have a victim mentality, often referring to the Democratic Party as a "plantation",[77][72] stating in 2020: "Black lives only matter to white liberals every four years—ahead of an election.
[15] In May 2018, Owens suggested that "something bio-chemically happens" to women who do not marry or have children, and she linked to the Twitter handles of Sarah Silverman, Chelsea Handler, and Kathy Griffin, saying that they were "evidentiary support" of this theory.
Overcivilization, however, is the LGBTQ community's current quest for transgender rights, or, more accurately described, the demand that biological men who self-identify as women be granted legal permission to use ladies' restrooms and dominate women's sports competitions.In April 2022, she called The Walt Disney Company "child groomers and pedophiles" and called for the boycott of the company, after Disney announced its opposition to Florida House Bill 1557, officially known as the "Parental Rights in Education Act" but commonly referenced as the "Don't Say Gay" legislation.
"[110] In January 2024, in a post on X (Twitter) Owens accused transgender people of "mass drugging children" and claimed the "LGBTQ movement brought with it a sexual plague on our society".
[129] Owens's comments about Hitler were played in April 2019 by Representative Ted Lieu during testimony in front of the House Judiciary Committee about the issue of increasing hate crimes and white supremacy in America.
Owens responded that Lieu had deliberately omitted an interviewer's question that provided critical context to her words, with the intent of misrepresenting them as an endorsement of Hitler, to smear her reputation.
"[134][135][136] On October 3, 2022, during Adidas Yeezy SZN 9 fashion show in Paris, Owens posed for a photo with Kanye West wearing a matching shirt with the "WHITE LIVES MATTER" slogan.
[137] During Paris Fashion Week, West entered negotiations with Owens's husband, the CEO of social networking service Parler, to purchase the website.
Owens suggested that Fuentes could be correct based on the number of Jewish officials appointed to the Biden administration, saying that "it seems a weird tweet for [Peterson] to be so disturbed about."
"[169][168][167] Her stance on Israel led to her break with Ben Shapiro, co-founder of The Daily Wire, the website for which Candace Owens then worked, contributing to her departing it in March 2024.
"[173] She also referred to Bill Gates as a "vaccine-criminal", and said that he and the World Health Organization (WHO) used "African & Indian tribal children to experiment w/ non-FDA approved drug vaccines.
[199] In December 2022, Owens faced backlash and fact-checking on social media after making unfounded claims about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's wife Olena Zelenska, with Twitter users debunking her allegations and highlighting the lack of evidence.
"[204] During an Instagram livestream on June 22, 2021, Owens accused former Republican congressional candidate Kimberly Klacik of money laundering, tax fraud, illegal drug use, and misusing campaign funds.
[205][207][209] In a statement, Jacob S. Frenkel, Klacik's attorney, said: "The defendant chose to use her huge social media platform to attack a respected Baltimore political figure" and that "We are using the proper forum — the power of the courts — to respond.
[214] In August 2018, Owens had a dispute with Sam Lucas, cousin of Mollie Tibbetts, who had been murdered by Cristhian Bahena Rivera, a 24-year-old Mexican undocumented immigrant.
[226][227] According to journalist Robert Evans, it was "possible, even likely", that Tarrant was a fan of Owens, considering her rhetoric against Muslim immigrants but that, in context, his references to her may have been an example of "shitposting" intended to provoke political conflict.
[230] Hours after the shootings, Owens posted a tweet in reaction to allegations that she inspired the mass murder, saying that she never created any content espousing her views on the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution or Islam.
In a manifesto published online, Henderson wrote "Candace Owens has influenced me above all each time she spoke I was stunned by her insights and her own views helped push me further and further into the belief of violence over the Jewish question.
[236][237] In response, local Jewish groups including the Zionist Federation of Australia, the Anti-Defamation Commission, Dayenu and the Holocaust Centre called for the Australian and New Zealand governments to deny Owens entry due to her anti-Semitic views and remarks.
"[241] A month later, Owens was also barred from entering New Zealand after her entertainer's work permit was refused, with the cited reason being that visas could not be granted to those excluded from another country.