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Erika Kirk has revealed new details about the first hours after her husband, Charlie Kirk, was shot and killed while speaking at a college event.
On September 10, 2025, Kirk died at the age of 31 after he was shot in the left side of his neck while appearing at a university event in Utah on September 10, 2025.
Kirk, a prominent conservative figure and close ally of President Donald Trump, had been addressing a crowd at Utah Valley University (UVU).
While he was responding to a question at an open-air event under a white gazebo in UVU’s quad — a bowl-shaped courtyard — with an audience of about 3,000 people, he was struck by a single shot.
The gunshot occurred at approximately 12:20PM local time, with eyewitness footage, which quickly circulated on social media, capturing the moment the bullet hit him in the neck, causing blood to immediately erupt from the wound as his body slumped over.
Despite being rushed to get medical assistance, Kirk could not be saved and died from his injuries.
Now, as the first anniversary of his death approaches, Erika has revealed the devastation of the first few hours after finding out her husband, who is the father of her two children, had been killed.
In an opinion piece for the New York Times, Erika described returning home to Phoenix as a "fever-dream", being surrounded by reminders of her husband and knowing he would never return.
She wrote that as her children ran to greet her, oblivious of their father's death, she felt "a wave building inside me, and I know it’s about to crash."
Erika revealed that she spoke with Usha Vance, wife of Vice President JD Vance, and told her: "I don't know how I'm going to do this."
Usha responded: "You know when you’re on an airplane with your kids, and you’re going to land in 15 minutes, but the kids are going crazy, screaming, throwing things, and then the plane lands, and the kids relax, and everything is fine again?
"That’s how it will be. Just get through the next 15 minutes."
Erika continued: "Eventually, I worked up the courage to go into our bathroom. I stared at his side of the sink. His toothbrush was still lying on its side, his towel still hanging on the hook. 'I’ll never touch that towel,' I told myself.
"I stood in the doorway of our bedroom. I turned on the light and walked toward his side of the bed. I stared at his pillow and wondered how long a person’s scent can last in sheets.
"I stood there in silence, replaying all of the completely ordinary mornings we woke up there together. I wasn’t ready to be there, so I turned off the light and crawled into bed with my three-year-old daughter. Just get through the next 15 minutes."
Erika revealed that she avoided their bedroom "for months" so that she could "confront the pain gradually," but found it would come in waves at every new milestone such as the first birthdays without him, and when she put the Christmas tree together wrong.
She added: "The wave still comes, but it’s different now. A year ago, when I felt it coming over me, I wondered whether it would swallow me completely.
"Now, I recognize it; sometimes I even welcome it, because for a moment the grief makes Charlie feel impossibly close.
"Grief is universal. It doesn’t care whom you voted for, where you come from or what you believe. Those who have walked through grief know that the waves never completely disappear; they aren’t supposed to.
"I am learning that grieving Charlie and living life at the same time are part of the rhythm of grief. I can miss him with every part of me and still laugh with our children. I can have a broken heart and still experience joy."
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