Phone call with Erika Kirk days after husband's assassination leaked as Candace Owens faces major backlash

The war of the words between Erika Kirk and Candace Owens continues, with the latter leaking a call that apparently came just days after Charlie Kirk's murder in September 2025.

While Charlie Kirk was seen as a divisive political commentator, his murder while giving a talk at Utah Valley University shocked the world.

After Kirk was fatally shot, a manhunt led to the eventual arrest of 22-year-old Tyler Robinson.

Kirk's murder triggered an outpouring of support from the likes of President Donald Trump, while his widow, Erika Kirk, vowed to continue his work by stepping up to lead Turning Point USA. This hasn't seemed to sit well with influencer Candace Owens, who has continued to call out Erika Kirk.

Remembered as the woman who was sued by President Emmanuel Macron when she made wild claims about his wife, Owens has since become known for sharing her own conspiracy theories about what happened to Charlie Kirk.

After sharing apparent texts from a group chat with Kirk and saying 'threats' were made against his life before his assassination, Owens has also vowed to violate the murder trial's gag order "on behalf of the world."

Erika Kirk referred to these stories and conspiracies about her husband's death as false and hurtful, leading to her and Owens having a December 2025 summit where Kirk said she was looking "forward to a productive conversation."

While a temporary truce looked like it was forged, Owens is again back in the news after she shared a call between Erika Kirk and TPUSA staff. Although Owens doesn't reveal where she got the 15-minute call from, it's supposedly from just 11 days after Kirk's murder.

Owens says it's important to "properly and fairly contextualize" the call, with Kirk being introduced as the new head of TPUSA. She starts by thanking the staff for their hard work in the aftermath of her husband's assassination, before going on to explain how there's been a boom in interest in the cause, as well as 'crazy' merchandise sales.

Ahead of revealing the call to the world, Owens had promised to drop the bombshell and said, "I’m so uncomfortable," when referring to its content.

Elsewhere in the leaked audio, Kirk can be heard saying: "I don't care if any of you have beef with each other from the past, or have any issues with someone said something about this or that.

“Like, if you guys have any of that, please put it to rest. My husband's dead. Like, I'm not trying to be morbid, but he's dead. And it puts life into perspective of how short life is and relationships."

Kirk has faced backlash over December's AmericaFest and its appearances from the likes of JD Vance and Nicki Minaj, while her harshest critics have accused her of 'faking' her grief.

In response to this leaked call, the negativity has been mostly aimed at Owens.

One critic wrote: "I find it disgusting that Candace Owens keeps going after Erika. Erika obviously wants Charlie's legacy grow. She is doing what he would have wanted her too. She will carry on."

Another added: "Respectfully, this doesn’t seem odd at all. What does seem odd is a podcast mom in her basement releasing Audio to frame a grieving widow as questionable because she is carrying the weight of her husband‘s legacy."

Not everyone sided with Kirk, as someone else concluded: "I'm so sick of this grieving in their own way. As a widow with small kids, who has been a part of groups of widows with small kids; her behavior is NOT normal."

In Owens' own takedown, she responded to the call by saying: " It is the general tone that is off-putting. It's the laughter that is off-putting. It's again, we are not even two weeks after watching your husband be assassinated. We're talking about numbers and metrics that have been hit."