Charlie Kirk’s wife Erika Kirk, has opened up about the moment she discovered her husband was dead and the harrowing hours that followed. Erika also detailed how President Trump called her twice since Charlie’s death and said her husband was “just like a son” for the President.
Erika, who did not accompany Charlie to the college in Utah where he was shot, told The New York Times that she was in her mother’s hospital room in Phoenix when the tragic call came from her husband’s longtime assistant, Michael McCoy. “He has been shot,” McCoy cried out over the phone.
The former pageant winner describes jumping on a plane immediately to rush to her husband’s side, but learnt about Charlie’s death while she was still in the air. “I’m looking at the clouds and the mountains,” Erika recalled. “It was such a gorgeous day, and I was thinking: This is exactly what he last saw.”
She told about how she was advised against seeing Charlie’s body as the bullet had ravaged his neck. “I want to see what they did to my husband,” Erika told the sheriff.
Erika Kirk: "My husband Charlie he wanted to save young men, just like the one who took his life...On the cross, our savior said, 'Father, forgive them, for they not know what they do.' That young man. I forgive him." pic.twitter.com/jy8W7YrmVs
— CSPAN (@cspan) September 21, 2025
“His eyes were semi-open. “And he had this knowing, Mona Lisa-like half-smile. Like he’d died happy. Like Jesus rescued him. The bullet came, he blinked, and he was in heaven,” she told The New York Times.
Erika also recalled Charlie’s last hours before he flew to Utah and how excited he was about college tours. “He got up, and I could hear him eating something in the kitchen. He’d been waiting all summer to begin touring.” The visits to college campuses were like an Olympic event for him. He trained for them. He had whiteboard sessions for hours. Mock debates. He was just so excited,” she added.
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Erika also shed light on the support she received from President Donald Trump, who has called her twice after the death. “Charlie was like a son to him. And when the president said, ‘Just let us know how we can support you,’ I told him, ‘My husband just loved conversing with you and using you as a sounding board for all sorts of things. Could we continue that?’ And he said, ‘Of course.’”
Erika said Charlie had received numerous death threats over the past year and had been traveling with a security team for months. Before the Utah session, Erika and Charlie’s friends broached the topic of bullet proof vest and glass during such talks but Charlie didn’t agree.
“Not yet,” Erika said, adding how he felt confident in his team, and that there would be additional security at the Utah event.
