{"id":504267,"date":"2026-02-26T01:30:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T01:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/504267\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T01:30:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T01:30:07","slug":"candace-owens-erika-kirk-conspiracy-doc-trailer-sees-backlash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/504267\/","title":{"rendered":"Candace Owens’ Erika Kirk Conspiracy Doc Trailer Sees Backlash"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tCandace Owens <\/a>is facing fresh backlash after she revealed a new weapon in her arsenal for her battle against Charlie Kirk\u2019s widow and Turning Point USA CEO Erika Kirk<\/a>, who took over his role after his assassination last year: a multipart docuseries that looks to expose the former beauty queen\u2019s past and motivations. The trailer for Bride of Charlie, released late on Monday, brought a swift reaction, with several right-wing conservatives calling the far-right pundit and podcaster \u201cevil.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tOwens, who worked under founder Charlie Kirk at TPUSA as the political conservative nonprofit college organization\u2019s communications director until 2019, has been sharing her thoughts on Erika Kirk on the podcast she hosts, Candace, since shortly after he was gunned down last fall at a Utah Valley University speaking event. The 37-year-old widow, whose widespread approval among GOP lawmakers crystallized when she received a standing ovation at President Trump\u2019s State of the Union address<\/a> in Washington on Tuesday night, was initially scrutinized for some of her behavior in the wake of her husband\u2019s death; the details of these moments and Erika Kirk\u2019s compelling past appears to be the blood that Owens smelled in the water as she looks to discredit and expose the right-wing pundit\u2019s widow.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe trailer for Bride of Charlie, which appears to be a multi-episode docuseries, goes for the widow\u2019s jugular. Opening with news reports of Charlie Kirk\u2019s murder, Erika is seen sobbing for her husband in a few brief clips but beaming in the next, decked out in a glittering sequined pantsuit as she steps out onstage at December\u2019s TPUSA AmericaFest conference. Later, she\u2019s posing for photo ops with fans in a replica of her late husband\u2019s famous \u201cdebate me\u201d booth and throwing out to the crowd some of the 50,000 Charlie Kirk memorial hats being sold at TPUSA events.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tErika Kirk\u2019s behavior in this period of grief was certainly questioned, and not just by Owens and other far-right commentators. The Washington Post ran a style piece leadline, \u201cErika Kirk Is Walking a Fine Line in a Glittering Pantsuit,\u201d and her mic\u2019d moment of mourning at her late husband\u2019s casket certainly raised eyebrows. The trailer allows Kirk to offer her own explanation: \u201cEveryone grieves differently, so if someone\u2019s acting weird, don\u2019t read into that,\u201d the widow says in a Zoom interview.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile some raised questions about Erika Kirk, then moved on and forgot about them, Owens apparently saw a vast conspiracy \u2014 or maybe, an opportunity \u2014 and has spent months rattling off conspiracy theories involving Erika. The remainder of the trailer flicks at these while carrying on with her suggestion that Erika is up to no good. The conspiracy theories and potentially unflattering bedfellows are then rattled off \u2014 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a Romanian church accused in a child trafficking scandal. It concludes with footage of Erika, edited to look far more sinister as she took over the powerful conservative organization last year, displayed alongside multiple talking heads (not Owens, notably) who question her actions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe backlash to the trailer has been loud and angry. It\u2019s also growing and is directed entirely at Owens, whom multiple pundits and commenters have called \u201cevil\u201d for producing the series, for sharing the trailer and for suggesting that a conspiracy to kill and replace Charlie Kirk happened at TPUSA.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cPure, unadulterated, fucking evil,\u201d Meghan McCain wrote on X<\/a>. \u201cWho in God\u2019s name would put a woman whose husband was brutally assassinated in front of the entire world through this? I am so upset by this, I am just so deeply sorry Erika and her family have to be put through this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBen Shapiro posted a video to X to ensure all listeners know he believes Owens to be \u201cevil,\u201d too. Owens and the popular right-wing thought leader have been butting heads for a while now, with the death of Charlie Kirk a central topic. Their rift has been a central fault point in the division emerging on the far right amid President Trump\u2019s second term and the stakes seemed to climb on Shapiro\u2019s most recent episode\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cShe\u2019s a conspiratorial evil, person,\u201d Shapiro told his audience. \u201cApparently, she is calling Erica Kirk a lesbian pedophile grooming a 15-year-old. She has been suggesting for a while that TPUSA was complicit, if not in the murder of Charlie Kirk, then in the cover-up of the murder of Charlie Kirk. This is the stuff that Candace Owens<\/a> has been doing, because Candace Owens is a true vampire.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShapiro suggested that Erika Kirk \u201csue the living hell out of Candace Owens for this sort of stuff.\u201d While there are no records of her filing any legal complaint on the matter, Owens is being sued by French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte, over her claims that the latter is actually a man.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Candace Owens is facing fresh backlash after she revealed a new weapon in her arsenal for her battle…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,18229,447,134,95267],"class_list":{"0":"post-504267","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-candace-owens","11":"tag-celebrities","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-erika-kirk"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}