Candice Owens has been a leading voice among Black conservatives in the U.S., proudly opposing feminism, LGBTQ+ rights, and common sense. Formerly a host on Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire, Owen recently parted ways with the news channel after a long and fiery feud.
Owens became famous after she failed to launch Social Autopsy, a digital tool against cyberbullying that promised to ignore privacy concerns while unmasking online personas and ensuring that any post would be forever remembered. When people on the left raised some valid questions about how potentially illegal the tool would be, Owen defected to the conservative side, where she got quite comfortable very fast.
As a right-inclined personality, Owen eventually scored a hosting gig on Shapiro’s equally conservative Daily Wire news channel. Over the years, Owen would use her mediatic stage to claim everyone opposing the absurd “Don’t Say Gay” bill was a pedophile, defend Russia after the invasion of Ukraine, and even go against the Black Lives Matter movement. However, the honeymoon period between Owens and Shapiro came to an abrupt end after the military conflict between Israel and Hamas escalated in Palestine.
Why did Candice Owen part ways with Daily Wire?
After a brutal Hamas attack that targeted Israeli civilians, Israel declared an all-out war that turned into the bombarding of hospitals, schools, and even refugee centers. While the actions of Hamas are tragic, taking Israel’s side is also impossible as they indiscriminately kill civilians in Palestine to get to their enemies.
Unfortunately, some people find it difficult not to see the world through binary lenses and insist on reducing every complex political issue into an “us versus them” stance. Hence, there was a public exchange of insults between Owens and Shapiro. Owens used her social media platform to say no country should have the right to perform genocide, an apparent criticism of the way Israel responded to the Hamas attack. Shapiro decided that Owen’s comments were anti-semitic and he proceeded to slam her in public. It was then Owens’ turn to make justice to Shappiro’s accusation by praising Hitler, defending Kaine West’s attack on Jews, and even feeding conspiracy theories about “secret Jewish gangs.”
The internal fight between Owens and Shapiro shook Daily Wire’s foundations to the point of unsustainability. That is why Daily Wire’s CEO, Jeremy Boreing, announced on X that the news channel would no longer work with Owens. Owens confirmed the news on her X account, saying she’s “finally free,” and told followers she’d take a “brief hiatus” before relaunching her show on YouTube.
The feud between Owens and Daily Wire seems to be over for now. However, if she manages to create her own YouTube audience, the two conservative titans might continue their fight — of trying to prove that one is not equally or more unhinged than the other.