Conservative influencer Candace Owens’ new “investigative series” on Erika Kirk appears likely to delve into a spurious conspiracy theory accusing the Turning Point USA CEO and widow of anti-LGBTQ+ Christian nationalist activist Charlie Kirk of being “a lesbian pedophile,” according to fellow far-right media personality Ben Shapiro.

On Wednesday, Owens released the first part of her “Bride of Charlie” series on her YouTube channel, which covers wild conspiracy theories about Erika Kirk’s background and early life.

Related

A drag queen’s Erika Kirk imitation raises thousands for charity

Insights for the LGBTQ+ community

Subscribe to our briefing for insights into how politics impacts the LGBTQ+ community and more.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today

But a teaser trailer released earlier this week suggests future installments will delve into other lurid and debunked allegations, including claims that Kirk somehow played a role in her husband’s assassination, that an evangelical charity she worked with was connected to a child trafficking operation, and that Erika Kirk had an inappropriate relationship with a 15-year-old girl more than a decade ago.

“She has been calling Erika Kirk a lesbian pedophile, grooming a 15-year-old,” Shapiro claimed in a video reacting to the “Bride of Charlie” teaser earlier this week. “This is the stuff that Candace Owens has been doing.”

Shapiro was likely referring to a video Owens posted earlier in February amplifying an online conspiracy theory alleging that Kirk had an inappropriate relationship with a 15-year-old girl in 2014, when Kirk was 25, based on alleged text and social media messages between the two. Owens claimed to have spoken to the now-27-year-old young woman, who Owens claims now considers her relationship with Kirk to have been “weird.” However, in her video, Owens also claims that the young woman told her that she and Kirk only ever interacted via social media and text messages after their initial meeting.

While Owens implied in the video that Kirk’s relationship to the then-15-year-old had “proximity to child trafficking scandals” and claimed that “some people believe” their relationship “amounted to a type of grooming,” she did not, as Shapiro claims, refer to Kirk as a “lesbian pedophile.”

The “Bride of Charlie” teaser includes several screenshots of the text messages and social media posts allegedly between Kirk and the young woman featured in Owens’s earlier video.

Amplifying false claims that public figures are secretly gay or trans has become a well-worn part of Owens’s conspiratorial modus operandi in recent years. The former Daily Wire host — who left the far-right media outlet in 2024 after being accused of antisemitism in her criticism of Israel’s war in Gaza — has promoted false claims that French First Lady Brigitte Macron is secretly trans; and suggested that former President Joe Biden, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, French President Emmanuel Macron, former Swiss President Viola Amherd, and former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are all secretly gay. She has also claimed that TikTok “socially engineers” women to be gay.

Owens is just one of many voices on both the left and far-right who have been critical of Erika Kirk’s public appearances and conduct since being appointed CEO of Turning Point USA, the influential anti-LGBTQ+ Christian nationalist youth outreach organization founded by Charlie Kirk, in the immediate aftermath of her husband’s death.

However, authorities have given no indication that Erika Kirk was in any way involved in her husband’s murder during a speaking event at Utah Valley University last September. The accused gunman, Tyler James Robinson, allegedly planned and carried out the assassination entirely on his own, according to the FBI.

As for claims that Erika Kirk had ties to a Romanian charity accused of being involved in human trafficking, Lea Marchl, a news verification researcher at NewsGuard, tells the Washington Post that the misinformation watchdog has thoroughly debunked that conspiracy theory.

Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.