Candace Owens

Candace Owens is an overnight sensation in conservative media, said Will Pavia in The Times (U.K.). Over the past year, Owens, 28, went from videoing diatribes on her couch to meeting with President Trump in the Oval Office. At first, YouTube viewers were shocked to see a young black woman scolding minorities for competing in “oppression Olympics” and being “enslaved” on the Democrats’ “plantation of thought.” Then millions watched her lash out at Black Lives Matter protesters and critics of the white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville. Her big break came in April, when Kanye West interrupted his praise of Trump to tweet, “I love the way Candace Owens thinks.” When Owens read that, she says, “I will admit that I cried.” She thinks racial tension would die down if Americans stopped talking about it—“You’re actually programming people to see race.” When she was in high school in Connecticut, however, Owens found herself at the center of a racial scandal. A group of boys left messages on her phone threatening to shoot her in the head for being black. Police investigated, and she was kept home for six weeks. She came away from the incident angry at the adults, and feeling sorry for the boys who threatened her. “We were kids. Imagine being 14 and the entire state is calling you a racist. Someone could have just said sorry.” ■