The Cut. “We are bickering and joking, and a video becomes a sort of geopolitical catastrophe. In the world we live in, we don’t have a lot of time to lose… This is all a bit of nonsense.” Because yes, apparently, a very public slap from your wife is just another quirky marital moment—nothing suspicious whatsoever.
However, truth be told, that incident is hardly the most controversial aspect of their decades-long relationship. Their entire union has been surrounded by controversy since day one. Brigitte is nearly 25 years older than Emmanuel, and they met when she was his high school teacher. He was 15, and she was married. Let that sink in. Although the Macrons have gone to great lengths to portray their marriage as a love story for the ages, the public perception hasn’t always been favorable.
They had a student-teacher relationship at the start
As if it’s not obvious, Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron’s relationship is the textbook definition of a May-December romance, but theirs is even more unconventional. Brigitte is almost 25 years older than Emmanuel. Think Sam and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, only with a slight caveat: Aaron met Sam when he was 18, while Emmanuel met Brigitte when he was just 15 (coincidentally, it’s the age of consent in France). She was 39, married, and *drumroll* his high school drama teacher.
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Back then, Emmanuel was a student at Le Providence in Amiens. Brigitte, meanwhile, was both a teacher and a mother, with one of her daughters even being Emmanuel’s classmate. “Mummy, there is a crazy boy in our class who knows everything about everything,” her eldest, Laurence, reportedly told her, per the New York Post. That “crazy boy” soon started asking Brigitte to help him with scripts for school plays. They began meeting every Friday, and those meetings, Brigitte later admitted, were what sparked their connection. “Little by little, I was won over by his intelligence,” she said, according to the Independent.
At first, Emmanuel’s parents thought he was dating Laurence. And when they found out it was Brigitte, they quickly sent him away to boarding school in Paris. Brigitte even claimed that she hoped the separation would end things. “I told myself that he would fall in love with someone his [own] age. It didn’t happen,” she told Paris Match. Emmanuel kept pursuing her through his university years, and by 2007 — one year after Brigitte’s divorce — they tied the knot. “Each and every one of you is a witness to these last 13 years,” Emmanuel said in a toast during their wedding, as noted by the New York Post. “And you have accepted us. You have made us what we are today… I want to thank you for loving us the way we are.”
Brigitte’s children were incredibly hurt by their union
It’s one thing to fight for your love. It’s another to bulldoze through it, knowing full well that other people — namely, your own children — are getting hurt in the process. In Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron’s case, their relationship didn’t just cause controversy — it also had an emotional toll on Brigitte’s three kids from her first marriage: Laurence, Sébastien, and Tiphaine.
After rumors swirled that a boy from Laurence’s class was actually her mother’s secret lover, the family became the subject of nonstop gossip in their small town. Tiphaine later told Paris Match just how brutal it got. “I learned a lot about human nature then. I know that in these moments we must focus on what is important and move forward, ignoring the criticism,” she recalled (via Telegrafi). “And there was everything, attacks, rumors, punishments … At that time there were no such things as social networks, but we lived in a small provincial town, everything was known.
Brigitte, for her part, admitted she tried to resist her relationship with Emmanuel — but she didn’t. And she knows her children paid the price. “In any case, separations always do damage. I know that I have hurt my children, and that is the thing I reproach myself for the most. But I couldn’t not do it,” she explained to Elle, adding that pursuing the relationship was a do-or-die moment for her own happiness. “There are times in your life when you make critical choices. And for me, this was one of those times. So anything anyone might say about the 20 years’ difference is just a big nothing … If I had not made that choice, I would have missed out on my life.”
There were rumors that Emmanuel was leading a double life
As if the whole student-teacher, 25-year age-gap situation wasn’t already controversial enough, Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron also had to contend with another slate of ridiculous rumors. First off, there was speculation that Brigitte was just a “beard” to cover up Emmanuel’s alleged relationship with then-Radio France head Mathieu Gallet. Unsurprisingly, Emmanuel didn’t let it slide and addressed the issue head-on at a rally. “Those who want to spread the idea that I am a fake, that I have hidden lives or something else, first of all, it’s unpleasant for Brigitte,” he said (via SCMP). “She shares my whole life from morning till night and she wonders on a basic level how I could physically do anything!” He even threw in a joke for good measure. “If over dinners in the city, if on forwarded emails, you’re told that I have a double life with Mathieu Gallet or anyone else, it’s my hologram that suddenly escaped, but it can’t be me!” he added.
Years later, Brigitte became the subject of another round of bizarre gossip, with conspiracy theorists spreading the lie that she was a transgender woman born “Jean-Michel Trogneux” — who, for the record, is actually her brother. The baseless rumor was pushed by self-described journalist Natacha Rey and spiritual medium Amandine Roy (yes, really). “The worst thing is the false information and fabricated scenarios. People eventually believe them and disturb you, even in your intimacy,” Emmanuel said of the nonsense (via the New York Post). In response, Brigitte filed a defamation lawsuit against Rey and Roy, and in September 2024, a Paris court ruled in her favor, ordering the two women to pay €8,000 (around $9,000) in damages to her and €5,000 (roughly $5,700) to her brother.
The pair is aware that their marriage isn’t something for others to look up to
For all the effort Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron have put into defending their unconventional love story, even they’ll admit theirs isn’t exactly relationship goals. They’re quite aware that it never has been. “We are not a model couple. Of course we are not the ideal couple,” Brigitte told France’s RTL radio. “Being a couple is complicated; it’s an everyday struggle. When you have a big age difference, it can be even more complicated.” She also takes issue with being called a “cougar,” insisting it’s both offensive and inaccurate. “What is this word? It doesn’t describe anything! I’ve always been attracted to men my own age — except Emmanuel, who was the exception.”
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Emmanuel, meanwhile, has always seemed unfazed by all the ruckus, noting that the outrage likely wouldn’t exist if their uncomfortable age gap was reversed. “If I had been 20 years older than my wife, nobody would have thought for a single second that I couldn’t be [an intimate partner],” he told Le Parisien (via Glamour). “It’s because she is 20 years older than me that lots of people say, ‘This relationship can’t be tenable.'” Still, even he acknowledges their relationship isn’t the easiest to explain. Speaking to CNN, he admitted it’s difficult to talk about their marriage publicly because of its nature. But at the end of the day, he stands by it. “It’s always hard to speak about that. It’s part of intimacy. Love is part of my life and my balance,” he said. “I do believe that you don’t build something great and you don’t behave properly if you’re not balanced and a strong couple. I’ve been with my wife for decades now and she’s part of me.”
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