A notable figure among conservative firebrands is a Black woman of Virgin Islands descent who was raised outside of New York City. Meet Candace Owens, a former liberal who has transitioned, some charge, into a white nationalist apologist.
Controversy Surrounding Candace
Instead of commentating about the news, Owens has become the news as of late. In recent weeks, she’s been interviewed by Joe Budden as well as by the crew of “The Breakfast Club.” She’s split with conservative commentator Ben Shapiro in the wake of anti-Semitic comments that also got her popular — yet controversial — podcast dropped by The Daily Wire.
Owens last month leveraged her Daily Wire platform to, some say, propagate anti-Semitism. During her show, she alleged the existence of “secret Jewish gangs” terrorizing Hollywood. Additionally, she recently liked a tweet perpetuating a false claim about Jews drinking Christians’ blood.
But Owens, or her contentious beliefs, didn’t just pop up out of nowhere.
She’s gone from a teen who sought assistance from her local NAACP in Connecticut after experiencing racial harassment by her high school classmates in 2007 to supporting Donald Trump.
Formerly, Owens served as a communications director for Turning Point USA, a conservative student activist group. Her prolific use of social media helped her build a large following online, transitioning her to new fame as a broadcaster for The Daily Wire in 2020.
On March 22, Owens parted ways with The Daily Wire after making repeated criticizing Israel’s war against Gaza, which offended co-founder Ben Shapiro, who is Jewish.
Owens was one of the most listened-to podcasters globally, with over 3 million subscribers on YouTube alone. She also streams content on X, formerly known as Twitter, boasting close to 5 million followers on the platform.
How She Built Her Wealth
And it has been social media, that has made Owens money. Owens has an estimated net worth ranging between $1 million and $5 million, to various reports, including Money Inc.
Owens is a mother of three to her British husband, George Farmer, who is the son of a Tory peer and essentially a member of the House of Lords, identifying with the Conservative Party’s ideology. They married over Labor Day weekend in 2019 at the Trump Winery near Charlottesville.
Farmer’s net worth is $180 million, and he is a businessman under 40 with a background in hedge fund management, Money Inc. reported. He is also the ex-chairman of Turning Point U.K. Additionally, he founded Parler, a conservative-leaning alternative to Twitter that has since been shuttered. It was one of the preferred apps among Capitol rioters in the January 6 attack.
Aside from her controversial remarks and feuds, Owens has utilized her persuasion skills to attract her followers to a startup fintech firm, Glorifi, which aimed to be a right-wing competitor to PayPal. The app raised about $50 million from an A-list group of investors.
In July 2022, GloriFi announced a deal to merge with DHC Acquisition Corp., a special-purpose acquisition company, The Wall Street Journal reported. The deal valued GloriFi at about $1.7 billion and required the company to raise at least $60 million in additional cash. Nevertheless, it shut down just a month after its initial launch, The Houston Chronicle reported.
Another startup aligned with an “anti-woke” agenda that Owens endorsed is the Freedom Phone, touted as the first “uncensored” phone in contrast to offerings from Apple and Google that are part of “Big Tech,” priced at $499, Newsweek reported. She served as an influencer for the 2021 startup, devised by wealthy bitcoin investor Erik Finman, inspired by the Capitol Riot on January 6 to create a phone free from monitoring and restrictive application guidelines.
Despite the phone’s claim to fame of allowing banned apps, Owens’ involvement has faced scrutiny from tech-savvy users. They pointed out that Owens’ claim of using the phone was debunked by her tweets via her iPhone, and the phone itself is a Chinese-developed model called the Umidigi A9 Pro. YouTuber Mrwhosetheboss suggested that Finman ordered shipments of A9 Pro phones from Alibaba and rebranded them with a custom App Store.
The Freedom Phone is still available for purchase on the official website, and, according to website, Owens still endorses the product, though there is no word on how much she has been paid for her endorsement.
Owens’ most notable endeavor is her involvement with the Black conservative movement, advocating the belief that the Democratic Party and its influence within the Black community are hindering progress. Inspired by Brexit, the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union, Owens initiated “Blexit,” encouraging Black individuals to depart from the Democratic Party and join the Republican Party, according to the official Blexit website.
In 2018, Owens received praise from Kanye West and Donald Trump for her intellect and criticism of the Democratic Party, prompting her to officially register as a Republican and continue to challenge “liberal myths” on “Candace.”
Owens co-founded the BLEXIT Foundation with Brandon Tatum in 2018, and for a brief moment had West on board the movement.
But that same year, West distanced himself from her after Owens wanted to credit West as the designer of Blexit T-shirts she was selling, according to The Washington Post.
Owens told The New York Post that, “I am blessed to say that this logo, these colors, were created by my dear friend and fellow superhero Kanye West.”
But that was not how West saw it. He said, West’s own words, “I introduced Candace to the person who made the logo and they didn’t want their name on it so she used mine,” West explained in a tweet at the time. “I never wanted any association with Blexit. I have nothing to do with it.”
Blexit received millions in contributions, but the foundation’s reported grants and assistance in 2021 amounted to just $4,000, and Owens declined to clarify how much was given to Black-owned businesses when questioned by The Daily Beast.
Despite this, she and West mended their broken relationship.
Like West, Owens is certainly an unconventional influencer in politics.
After studying journalism at the University of Rhode Island for three years, Owens transitioned to work in New York City, initially in the fashion industry and later in private equity for four years, according to her Blexit website. In 2016, she launched a website aimed at combating cyberbullying, according to the Blexit site.
Owens, the former host of The Daily Wire podcast, “Candace,” used to have sponsors, including companies like ExpressVPN, Grand Canyon University, and Balance of Nature. While her contract with The Daily Wire has never been disclosed, conservative podcaster Steven Crowder, suggested that The Daily Wire has a talent budget of $50 million for four years, Rolling Stone reported. According to The Hill, if Owens chooses to make videos directly for her consumers, she would have to rely on paid subscribers.
She is the author of two books: “Blackout: How Black America Can Make Its Second Escape from the Democrat Plantation” and “As Goes California: My Mission to Rescue the Golden State and Save the Nation,” both co-authored with Larry Elder, with the former book receiving a Goodreads Choice award, according to Amazon.
Candace Owens did not write “As Goes California: My Mission to Rescue the Golden State and Save the Nation”. That book was written by Larry Elder, who wrote a forward to the one book Ms. Owens did write.
She was fired from TPUSA, which now runs “Blexit”, and controls the donations made. She was given a show by Dennis Prager that she left to move to Daily Wire, but nothing seems to have been made public about that. DW also originally created a talk show for Candace, with a set and seating for a live audience. It failed, so she changed to podcast format with another new set.
She joined Locals.com as a creator, despite also having fallen out with the founder of Locals, Dave Rubin of The Rubin Report. He said on his podcast that he was surprised, as they had been very close friends, that she helped him choose strollers for his sons. Then Owens unfollowed Rubin on X, née Twitter, and changed her phone number. Rubin said she is welcome on Locals, which recently merged with Rumble.
This all seems more a story of becoming wealthy and famous than anything else. I could not look at myself in the mirror, having used and discarded and been so thoroughly unkind to so many people who gave her great jobs, donated to her charity. Where did those millions go?