How Not to Widow
Erika Kirk Turns Personal Loss into Staged Grief and Carries Forward Charlie Kirk’s Legacy, Weaponizing Faith for Political Gain
I held him as his heart stopped as he looked into my eyes, and the world collapsed into a single unbearable second that has never released me. The moment was sudden and violent, and it split my life open in a way nothing prepares you for, and every day since has been shaped by that silence, the silence only a widow understands.
The nights would not let me rest. Sleep refused me. My chest felt tight and my breath shallow. I could not have imagined just how many tears would come, endless, relentless. My child slept beside me and I held them through their grief while my body was breaking. I would reach for the comfort of my husband, only to remember he was gone, the very reason for my heartache. The emptiness would fold around me, pressing into my chest, and the ache of loss would strike as sharply as the moment his heart stopped.
Mornings came, heavy and unavoidable. Each small movement felt impossible. My hands trembled as I stood in the kitchen making school meals. I carried both of us through breakfast and into the day, though I barely ate at all.
Days were full of grief hitting all consuming at any moment, in the middle of the grocery store or at the bank, leaving me breathless, dizzy, unmoored. The sadness weighed with such an exhaustive and unpredictable force in the most ordinary of moments, what most take for granted. Nothing about my devastating loss was ever meant to be seen. It was not something I offered, or sold, or shaped for anyone else to consume. I lived it quietly, carrying not just the death itself but everything that fell apart with it. I am still carrying it, still rebuilding what remains.
I never wanted to write this. Everyone grieves differently, and I was determined to keep my dignity intact by refusing to turn suffering into comparison. But Erika Kirk has forced the conversation into the public square with a level of performance that distorts what real grief looks like and twists widowhood into something orchestrated, exploitative, and ultimately Turning Point USA’s white Christian nationalism.
Her grief feels entirely staged, calculated, and grotesquely polished to perfection. She wears white pantsuits and dresses that call to mind pageantry rather than mourning. Elvis-like sequins glint under the lights like showmanship. Her hair and nails are flawless. Every line of her face, every tilt of her head, every upward glance signals control and turns sorrow into spectacle. She clutches dry tissues, never a real tear in sight, and never a smudge of her makeup. She often lifts her eyes to the heavens as if her lord and savior will descend and unleash wrath on all who opposed Charlie Kirk or she is staring with the full damnation of hell into the camera. She waits for applause, for acknowledgment, for the world to witness her pain and to bend to her performance. This is what staged grief looks like.
For maximum effect, in her first public appearance Erika Kirk stood before a lucite lectern to the side of his chair in his podcast studio, her divinely manicured hands resting lightly on it, moving with the precision of someone who knew every eye was on her. Each strand of her hair in perfect place, diamond rings and earrings flashing under the lights, hands clasping a cross as if it were part of the act. She thanked first responders, police, and name dropped Trump, and Vance. Then she spoke of Charlie Kirk not as a man, but as a martyr, a vessel of destiny. “He laid down his life for me, for our nation, for our children,” she said, lifting her gaze to the heavens with the practiced focus of a performer.
There was Charlie Kirk’s freshly embalmed body laying in its eternal casket, with Erika Kirk leaning over him, mic’d up, and stroking his hand, the moment recorded and broadcast when it should have been private, sacred.
And then soon afterwards, a moment so controversial occurred on stage with JD Vance. The embrace was blasphemous. She wore black leather pants. Her fingers tangled in his hair, his hand pressed at her hip, a display so intimate it defied all decency for a widow preaching faith. The moment was public, orchestrated, a mockery of mourning, and an affront to everything sacred in grief. It was anti‑Jesus, a spectacle that twisted sorrow into theater and left a hollow, nauseating impression that loss could be weaponized for display.
She spoke publicly out of duty. Her now late husband, the face of a political right-wing network, had been assassinated in public, and it fell to her to carry forward the message, to perform the grief, to signal that the mission would continue unbroken and unapologetic. Every word, every postural upward glance was loaded with intent, calibrated to transform personal loss into a public declaration, to make clear to followers and opponents alike that the ideology he embodied would persist, sharper and louder than ever.
Erika Kirk and her sorrow was orchestrated and rehearsed, and while it was necessary that she address the public, it was impossible to ignore how deliberate it all was, how every reference to scripture, every pious vow to continue his work, every warning to those who had opposed Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA had been choreographed to reinforce a political mission that had always been wrapped in the same white evangelical nationalism and hatred that had animated the organization from the start. She declared that “you have no idea what you have unleashed,” turning private grief into a threat, a declaration of political power designed to assert dominance over anyone who had ever challenged the movement. Turning Point USA would carry on, its campus tours, conferences, and podcasts intact and magnified, and every tilt of her head, every shift of posture, every meticulously measured gesture reinforced the message: Charlie Kirk’s death would not mark an end, but a weaponized promise, a declaration that anyone who opposed the ideological network of scamvangelism, anyone who rejected its ideology and its faith, would feel the weight of its persistence.
Charlie Kirk was the face of Turning Point USA, a network built on Christian nationalism, exclusionary politics, and a rigid, politicized interpretation of faith. He wrapped ideology in scripture, promoted pro-Israel positions tied to end-times beliefs, and repeatedly aligned with rhetoric that marginalized people of color, questioned secular Jewish influence, dismissed cultural movements like Black Lives Matter, and attacked LGBTQ people and pro-choice advocates. He embraced a worldview that elevated certain identities and beliefs while attacking others, creating a political force that fused faith, power, and spectacle.
Erika Kirk is now carrying this legacy forward, performing grief in ways that amplify the same ideology, the same calculated optics, and the same exclusionary vision her husband promoted.
Turning Point USA has grown into a powerful financial and political force, raising tens of millions of dollars each year, near $85 million in 2024 alone, and spreading across campuses nationwide. Its nonprofit structure keeps donor identities and spending largely opaque, drawing scrutiny over transparency. Since Charlie Kirk’s death, fundraising and interest have surged. The money flows as predictably as the performance, a reminder that the ideology Erika Kirk now carries forward is as much about profit as it is about faith and spectacle. I’m not saying Erika Kirk is the new Tammy Faye Baker, but as the fake tears flow, so do the dollar bills.
My husband was the opposite of everything Charlie Kirk represented. He welcomed people of all races and religions into his life, his heart expansive and unguarded. Inclusion was who he was. He believed in lifting others up, in respect, compassion, and accountability. Where Turning Point USA built walls and sowed division, he built bridges. Where they wrapped ideology in faith to justify hatred, he lived his faith quietly, as a call to kindness and understanding. Remembering him is a reminder of what real integrity and love look like, and it is in that memory, in that example, that I find what matters most for myself and for my child.
While Erika Kirk continues to appear in public, at interviews, podcasts, and town halls, I need to acknowledge, widow to widow, there is a form of strength in her control and in the way she maintains composure under scrutiny. But true strength is not for an audience. True courage lives in private spaces no one sees. It is holding your child close. It is carrying grief without applause. That is the strength that matters.
I do not wish to dismiss her grief entirely. Losing a life partner is a hellish journey, one I would not wish on anyone. That pain is real, brutal, and unforgiving. But it is worth noting that grief need not be weaponized. It could be a force for unity, for inclusivity, for connection. It could have been different. That it is not makes the performance all the more stark, and the contrast with what my husband lived and taught all the more painful.
For more on the consequences of Charlie Kirk’s death and the targeting of critics, see my piece:
Erika Kirk developed her performance skills early when she competed in the 2012 Miss USA competition which was owned by Trump:
Raise the volume with me! Outspoken
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Thank you for speaking up on the reality of grief. I don't know what Erika claims to be feeling, but it isn't grief for a deceased loved one. Her behavior, make-up and costumes scream "new lover" not grieving widow.
🫂 You are a truly remarkable writer, and an absolutely genuine human being.
The Tammy Faye connection is a direct hit on Christian nationalism as accurate as that of a Peregrine Falcon, and shines the brightest light on that which is the most despicable… just how much of a facade it all is!
✌🏻💙🐙