Erika Kirk sat down for her first televised interview since the death of her late husband, Charlie Kirk, earlier this year.
“I can’t help [but] smile to hear his name or say it,” Erika, 36, said during the Wednesday, November 5, episode of Jesse Watters Primetime. “He was the love of my life. [He] still is.”
Charlie and Erika were married from May 2021 until his death in September. The couple shared two children: a daughter and a son born in 2022 and 2024, respectively.
Charlie was shot and killed on September 10 while speaking at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. The Turning Point USA cofounder died after being transported to a local hospital. He was 31.
Erika and Charlie Kirk’s Relationship Timeline: Inside Their Love Story
“It’s with a heavy heart that we, the Turning Point USA leadership team, write to notify you that early this afternoon, Charlie went to his eternal reward with Jesus Christ in heaven,” Turning Point USA said in a statement at the time.
Accused shooter Tyler Robinson turned himself into police two days later. He has yet to enter a plea to charges of aggravated murder, felony discharge of a firearm, two counts of obstruction of justice, two counts of witness tampering and violent offense committed in the presence of a child.
Two days after Charlie’s death, Erika broke her silence in an X livestream.
“Charlie, I promise I will never let your legacy die, baby. I won’t,” she said in the video. “Oh, Charlie, I love you. I love you, baby. Rest in the arms of our Lord as he blankets you with the words I know your heart always strives to hear. Well done, my good and faithful servant.”
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Later that month, Erika delivered an emotional eulogy during Charlie’s public memorial service, explaining why she chose to forgive her husband’s alleged shooter.
“I forgive him because it is what Christ did,” she said. “The answer to hate is not hate.”
Erika elaborated on her feelings about the matter in a New York Times interview published the same day as the memorial service.
“I’ve had so many people ask, ‘Do you feel anger toward this man? Like, do you want to seek the death penalty?’” she told the outlet. “I’ll be honest. I told our lawyer, I want the government to decide this. I do not want that man’s blood on my ledger. Because when I get to heaven, and Jesus is like: ‘Uh, eye for an eye? Is that how we do it?’ And that keeps me from being in heaven, from being with Charlie?”
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The following month, Erika reacted to criticism of her public grief over Charlie’s death.
“There is no linear blueprint for grief. One day you’re collapsed on the floor crying out the name Jesus in between labored breaths,” she wrote via Instagram in October. “The next you’re playing with your children in the living room surrounded by family photos and feeling a rush of something you can only attempt to define as divinely planted and bittersweet joy as a smile breaks through your face.”
She continued, “They say time heals. But love doesn’t ask to be healed. Love asks to be remembered. It’s humbling to realize that this magnitude of suffering didn’t steal my love for my husband. It amplified it. It crystallized it.”
Erika added that she carries Charlie “in every breath, in every ache and in every quiet act of day to day living as I attempt to relearn what that rhythm will be.”
“And what I’ve realized through these past 30 days is the greater the suffering, the purer the love,” she concluded. “And I have never loved him more than I do now.”
Keep scrolling for the biggest revelations from Erika’s sitdown with Watters:
Erika Kirk and Charlie Kirk ‘Always’ Received Death Threats
Erika Kirk shared that before Charlie Kirk’s murder, she and her husband were used to receiving alarming messages online.
“We get kidnapping threats we always have,” she said. “We get death threats we always have.”
Before Charlie’s college tour appearance, Erika brought up the idea of him wearing a safety vest.
“I used to say, ‘You know Charlie, have you ever thought about wearing a vest?’ He would nod to that and be like, ‘I’ve looked into it,’ but he would always say, ‘if they’re going to get me, they’re going to get me,’” she recalled. “He wasn’t afraid. It wouldn’t have mattered.”
Why Erika Kirk Wasn’t With Charlie Kirk at College Tour Stop
During the time of Turning Point’s event in Utah, Erika Kirk needed to stay behind in Arizona with her mom for a health issue.
“He was like, ‘Home needs you … Come with me on Thursday to the next event we have. That night, he was so excited,” she said, adding that Charlie Kirk was running late in the morning and didn’t have time to give her a goodbye kiss.
How Erika Kirk Learned About the Shooting
Erika Kirk explained that she was with her mom at a “doctor’s appointment” before she got the call about her husband’s death.
“I have my phone, and I see the video come in with him flinging out the hats. And I said, ‘Mom, look, it started.’ So we saw the hats being flung. I put my phone down, and it was on silent,” she recalled. “So I had no reason to look back at it. I moved my mom. I went back to grab my phone, and that’s when Mikey started calling me.”
After learning what happened, Erika was ready to be by her husband’s side.
“I’m just like, ‘Charlie’s been shot. He’s been shot. Get the kids. Get security. Get the kids. He’s been shot.’ I sprinted out of her treatment center, just collapsed in the middle of the parking lot,” she reflected.
Erika Kirk Recounts Seeing Charlie Kirk in the Hospital After His Death
As soon as Erika Kirk arrived in Utah, she headed directly to the hospital to see Charlie Kirk. While law enforcement advised against Erika seeing Charlie in that state, she was adamant about it.
“The room got quiet because half the room knew it’s probably a good idea, and the other half the room was like, ‘There is no way she’s listening to you right now.’ And I responded back to him, and I said, ‘With all due respect, sir, I want to see what they did to my husband, and I want to give him a kiss, because I didn’t get to give him a kiss this morning,’” she said. “And I said the same thing to the doctor.”
The doctor allowed Erika to see Charlie and shared that he still looked “so alive.”
“He was still warm and his eyes were slightly open. He had this smirk on his face,” she shared. “It meant three things to me. First, that he died doing what he loved. Second was that he was at peace. [Third], I gave him a kiss,”
Erika Kirk ‘Never’ Saw the Video of Charlie Kirk’s Death
While the video of Charlie Kirk’s death was shared all over social media, Erika Kirk has not seen it and will never watch it in the future.
“There’s certain things you see in your life that you can never unsee. There’s certain things you see in your life that mark your soul forever,” she said. “I want my husband’s public assassination to be something I never see. I never want my kids to see. And for people who actually enjoy watching that she’s quite literally sick.”
What Erika Kirk Said to Jimmy Kimmel After His Comments About Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Killer
After Jimmy Kimmel Live! was briefly taken off the air following his comments about Charlie Kirk’s death, Erika Kirk passed along a message to the late night show via the Turning Point team.
“I said, ‘Tell them thank you, we received their note. This is not our issue, not our mess. If you want to say I’m sorry to someone who’s grieving, go right ahead. But if that’s not in your heart, don’t do it. I don’t want it. I don’t need it,’” she said.
What Erika Kirk Tells Her and Charlie Kirk’s Kids
Erika Kirk confessed that her daughter “continues to ask” where her father is and she tells her little one that Charlie Kirk is in “heaven.”
“She goes, ‘So does that mean he’s in a different house?’ And I said, ‘Yes, baby, he is building a house for us. Some people would say mansion.’” she recalled. “Children are so precious. I said, ‘Baby, we will all go one day. We will all go one day.’ It makes me speechless, because it’s for the kids, and that’s how I can keep telling the kids, ‘Daddy’s thinking about you and loves you and all these people.’”
Why Erika Kirk Forgave Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Murderer
Erika Kirk publicly forgave Tyler Robinson while eulogizing Charlie Kirk during his memorial service. Erika explained her reasoning.
“A lot of people in this world think that forgiveness is a weakness, or that when you forgive, you forget, and it’s the exact opposite, [it] is a form of freedom the enemy, the enemy stole my husband,” she admitted. “It’s more so for me than this man, because the enemy would have my heart, and I knew that every day The Lord forgives me for things so he forgives everybody else for things, small, big … it’s not easy. It never is easy, but it’s freeing. It’s so freeing. And again, it’s not a weakness, but it’s a way for me to be able to say, ‘You’ll never get me.’”
As for how Erika feels about Robinson potentially getting the death penalty, that is not a burden she wants to decide.
“I do not want this man’s blood on my ledger when I stand before the Lord,” she said “I want the government to decide it’s biblical too. Justice will ultimately be served.”
Erika Kirk Appreciates Vice President JD Vance’s Support
Erika Kirk expressed her gratitude toward JD Vance and his wife, Usha Vance, for how they’ve been by her side following Charlie Kirk’s death.
“They are the most incredible people with such genuine love,” she said of the couple. “Just everything they did for us was so humanized. I mean, they were there for us.”
How Erika Kirk Feels Continuing Charlie Kirk’s Tour
As Erika Kirk resumed Charlie Kirk’s college tour she shared that she feels safe because she feels her husband by her side. She added that Charlie would be impressed with what they’ve built.
“He’d be blown away,” she reflected. “He wanted his vision for these events was stadiums. He always wanted them to be massive, and he loved them being outside, of course.”
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