Candace Owens Spreads Baseless Claim Zelensky’s Wife Went on $40,000 Shopping Spree in Paris

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Candace Owens spread the baseless claim that the wife of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky blew €40,000 on a shopping spree in Paris.

The claim, which spread on social media this week, has been used to criticize Zelensky and undermine his efforts to secure further aid from the US to fight the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (On the culture war right, it’s not enough to just disagree with the US sending aid to Ukraine; the Ukrainians themselves must be cast as grifters, even monsters.)

Owens, a culture warrior for the Daily Wire, responded to Zelensky’s speech before a joint session of Congress this week by accusing him of “stealing from our people” while his wife “drop tens of thousands of dollars shopping in Paris.”

The claim that Zelensky’s wife, Olena Zelenska, went on a €40,000 shopping spree in Paris has spread around social media for several days, receiving promotion from a number of influential right-wing accounts who have used it to argue against sending further aid to Ukraine.

One of the earliest Twitter accounts spreading the rumor claimed Zelenska spend €40,000 in one hour at a store on L’Avenue Montaigne, a street known for luxury shopping.

But the claim appears to have no evidence in support of it. No news outlets have reported on the shopping spree, which is said to have happened during Zelenska’s trip to Paris earlier this month with Ukrainian officials.

Newsweek published an extensive fact check of the claim, which found a lot of chatter but no actual evidence for it:

While the claim about Zelenska was picked up by other social media users including conservative voices such as the Gateway Pundit, and hoax news sites, its provenance appears to be extremely murky and lacking in credibility, Newsweek Fact Check found.

Several of the tweets, including those in English and Russian, appeared to feature an image of a news article detailing the “story” of the $40,000 spend.

While the source is not cited in those tweets, Newsweek found that the screenshotted article, titled “Zelensky’s Wife Spent $40,000 Shopping in Paris While Demanding US Give Ukraine Money,” appeared on known hoax news site NewsPunch, widely reported to have disseminated misinformation online.

NewsPunch, in turn, does not cite sources for the claim other than an embedded tweet by SGM World News.

Indeed, many of the tweets spreading the claim include screenshots of purported news stories, but no links.

The tweet from Owens, which came before Zelensky’s speech to Congress and has been viewed more than 700,000 times, remains posted on the platform but was appended with added context from Twitter: “There is no evidence that Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska went went on a shopping spree during her diplomatic trip to Paris.”