Erika Kirk has revealed she was “praying to God” that she was pregnant when her husband, conservative activist Charlie Kirk, was assassinated in September.
“We wanted to have four,” Kirk, 37, said in an interview with Megyn Kelly that aired Monday. “And I was praying to God that I was pregnant when he got murdered.”
After having a three-year-old daughter and a one-year-old son together, the couple was “really excited to just expand our family,” Kirk said.
“I was like, ‘Oh, goodness, that was going to be the ultimate blessing out of this catastrophe,’” she added about having another baby.
The Turning Point USA leader said that now, she encourages young couples to not wait to have children.
“Especially if you’re a young woman, don’t put it off. You can always have a career, you can always go back to work. You can never just go back to having children,” she said.
“And they grow so fast and so quickly. I just, I was praying. Both of us were.”
Charlie Kirk, 31, was shot dead while speaking to college students at Utah Valley University during an event for his conservative youth organization, Turning Point USA. His suspected killer, Tyler Robinson, was arrested the next day and charged with murder.
While the Kirks chose to keep their children’s faces off the internet, Kirk has spoken about how her children have dealt with the loss of their father. She said after she arrived home from escorting her husband’s casket back to Arizona, her daughter asked, “Where’s daddy?”
“I said, ‘Baby, daddy loves you so much,’” she recounted telling her daughter at the time. “‘Don’t you worry. He’s on a work trip with Jesus so he can afford your blueberry budget.’”
While posthumously accepting the Presidential Medal of Honor on her late husband’s behalf in a ceremony at the White House Rose Garden last month, Kirk read out a birthday message from their daughter to Charlie Kirk.
Fighting back tears, she read out: “Happy birthday Daddy, I want to give you a stuffed animal. I want to eat a cupcake with ice cream and I want you to come home for a birthday surprise. I love you.”
Erika and Charlie Kirk were married in May 2021 after meeting in New York City in 2018.
Following her husband’s death, Kirk was named the new leader of Turning Point USA as she vowed to carry on Charlie’s work to honor his legacy.
“If you thought that my husband’s mission was powerful before, you have no idea,” Kirk said during a memorial broadcast of her husband’s podcast. “You have no idea what you just have unleashed across this entire country.”
