Erika Kirk Recounts Final Moments With Charlie Kirk in Hospital, Interpreting His ‘Smirk’ as a Defiant Message

Nearly two months after Charlie’s assassination, Erika opened up about the surreal experience in an interview with Fox News’ Jesse Watters. Growing emotional, she described what her husband looked like while lying in the hospital immediately after the shooting.

“When we walked into that room … he had this smirk on his face,” said a tearful Erika as she explained the powerful interpretation she drew from that final look. “That smirk, that smirk to me is that look of, ‘You thought you could stop what I’ve built. You thought you could end this vision, this movement, this revival. You thought you could do that by murdering me. You got my body; you didn’t get my soul.'”

Charlie, the right-wing activist and co-founder of Turning Point USA, was fatally shot on September 10 during the first stop of his American Comeback Tour. The incident occurred at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, where he was conducting one of his trademark “Prove Me Wrong” events. He was shot in the neck while responding to a student’s question about gun violence.

After being transported to the hospital in critical condition, President Donald Trump later took to Truth Social to share the news that Kirk had died.

Two days after his death, Erika — who shared a 3-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son with Charlie — broke her silence on the killing of her husband, delivering an emotional speech via podium in Kirk’s podcast studio.

The 36-year-old began her speech — which was live-streamed on Turning Point USA’s social media — by expressing her gratitude toward law enforcement for finding her husband’s “assassin,” and the first responders who attempted to save Kirk.

She also thanked Turning Point USA organization, his podcast team, and his “millions” of supporters, before becoming emotional as she thanked Kirk’s “dear friend” Vice President J.D. Vance and his “phenomenal wife” Usha for their support, along with President Trump and his “incredible family.”

“Mr. President, my husband loved you,” Erika said through tears, “and he knew that you loved him too. He did. Your friendship was amazing. You supported him so well, as did he for you.”

Erika — who is Catholic — continued, “Two days ago, my husband went to see his savior, and his God,” adding that Kirk always said he wanted to be “remembered for his courage and for his faith.”

“Now and for all eternity, he will stand at his savior’s side wearing the glorious crown of a martyr,” she added.

The following week, Erika stepped into the role of CEO and board chairman for Turning Point USA, and would go on to give another emotional address at her late husband’s very public memorial service on September 21. On October 10, she took to Instagram and opened up about her grieving process — exactly 30 days after Charlie’s death.

“…there is no linear blueprint for grief,” she wrote in an Instagram post sharing footage from memorials for Kirk around the country. “One day you’re collapsed on the floor crying out the name Jesus in between labored breaths. 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 on your face.”

“They say time heals. But love doesn’t ask to be healed,” she continued. “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.”

She concluded her post: “I carry my 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. And I have never loved him more than I do now.”