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Erika Kirk Recalls Thinking Husband Charlie Kirk Was ‘Going to Make It’ After Being Shot
Erika Kirk had hope that her late husband, Charlie Kirk, would survive after being fatally shot in broad daylight at age 31 on September 10, 2025.
In a Vanity Fair interview published Tuesday, September 29, the Turning Point USA CEO, 37, recalled the immediate aftermath of the tragic event that would change her life.
The mother of two said she “knew exactly” where she was the moment that her late husband was killed while speaking at Utah Valley University as part of his American Comeback Tour.
Erika was taking her mother to a doctor’s appointment when she received a call from Turning Point chief of staff Mikey McCoy telling her, “Charlie, he’s shot. He’s shot.”
In response, she asked, “Is he alive?”
Though Charlie died almost instantly, Erika told Vanity Fair that the right-wing political activist’s heart continued to beat intermittently.
“I remember thinking, Oh dear God, he’s going to make it,” she said, recalling what she was thinking at the airport en route to Utah to be by her husband’s side. “He has a pulse.”
When she got there, though, Charlie had already died.
Erika said she remembers a police officer at the hospital telling her, “I can’t tell you not to see your husband. But I’ve been doing this for more than 20 years. If it were my spouse, I wouldn’t want to remember them this way.”
However, she insisted on saying goodbye.
“I looked back at him and said, ‘With all due respect, I want to see what they did to my husband. I didn’t get a kiss goodbye this morning. I just want to kiss my husband,'” Erika recalled.
“I’ll never be able to put it into words,” Erika said. “But Charlie had a smirk. It wasn’t sad.”
In a 2025 interview with Fox News, Erika recalled getting the news. “Mikey called me, and I’ll never forget him just being like, ‘Charlie’s been shot. He’s been shot. Get the kids. Get security. Get the kids. Get the kids. He’s been shot,'” she said.
“I sprinted out of her treatment center, just collapsed in the middle of the parking lot,” Erika explained. “Called our security. Yeah… Unbelievable nightmare.”
Tyler James Robinson, the man accused of shooting Charlie, is currently facing multiple charges, including one count of aggravated murder, in connection to his death.
A judge recently ruled that a trial can move forward, and NBC News reported that his next court date is set for October 23. He pleaded not guilty to all charges against him.
