Far-right influencer Candace Owens is no longer with the Daily Wire after three years of working as a commentator for the network, the company announced on Friday.
“Daily Wire and Candace Owens have ended their relationship,” Daily Wire cofounder and CEO Jeremy Boreing announced on X (formerly known as Twitter) on Friday morning.
Owens also confirmed on X that she would no longer be working with the Daily Wire, writing, “The rumors are true — I am finally free,” before redirecting her followers to her website, adding, “There will be many announcements in the weeks to come.” In a separate tweet, she linked to her YouTube channel, telling her followers she would be resuming posting content on there “after a brief hiatus.”
Though neither Boreing nor Owens publicly elaborated on the circumstances behind her departure, the announcement comes on the tail end of months of public friction between Owens and Daily Wire cofounder Ben Shapiro over their conflicting views on the Israel-Hamas war, as well as Owens’ promotion of antisemitic conspiracy theories. Founded in 2015, the Daily Wire has been criticized for promoting anti-LGBTQ and transphobic content, such as the Matt Walsh documentary What Is a Woman?
As Rolling Stone previously reported, Owens’ feud with Shapiro has been percolating for months, starting with her criticism of the Israeli army’s actions in Gaza. In November, she tweeted, “there is no justification for a genocide. I can’t believe this even needs to be said or is even considered the least bit controversial to state.” Her remarks were in response to the Israeli army’s siege in Gaza in retaliation to the Oct. 7 Hamas-led terrorist attack, which left more than 1,160 people dead. To date, more than 30,000 Palestinians have been reported dead as a result of the IDF’s initiative in Gaza.
Shapiro, an observant Jew, criticized Owens’ tweets, saying during an event that “her behavior during this has been disgraceful, without a doubt.” They proceeded to publicly bicker on social media for days, with Shapiro urging Owens to “quit” and Owens accusing Shapiro of “acting unprofessional and emotionally unhinged.”
In the following months, Owens has graduated from criticizing Israel’s military actions to increasingly antisemitic rhetoric on social media, alluding to the existence of a “sinister” Jewish “gang” in Hollywood and accusing a “fringe minority” of Jews of being “evil Marxists” intent on gaining “political power.” She also recently liked a tweet accusing Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, a longtime critic of Owens, of being “drunk on Christian blood,” a reference to the antisemitic blood libel conspiracy theory that has been used to defend the persecution and murder of Jews for centuries. Owens has also repeatedly defended her friend Kanye West, who famously tweeted about going “death con 3 [sic] on Jewish people” and has publicly professed his admiration of Hitler.
Despite Shapiro’s public condemnation of her comments, prior to Friday’s announcement Owens had seemingly been unconcerned about her status at the Daily Wire. As recently as earlier this month, she told Breakfast Club host Charlamagne tha God that in response to Shapiro’s remarks criticizing her, “I chose peace, [and] he responded to the peace with not peace,” adding, “Ben doesn’t have the power to fire me.”
Owens and the Daily Wire did not immediately respond to requests for comment.