Conservative political commentator Candace Owens is questioning the authenticity of her late friend Charlie Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk’s (née Frantzve) birth date.
“I will tell you my personal opinion and experience with her,” Owens, 36, said in the Wednesday, February 25, episode of her documentary series Bride Of Charlie. “What alarms me about Erika isn’t so much the fact that she lies, which we will prove to you over and over again, but it’s also the fact that I don’t know that she’s aware that she’s lying.”
Owens suggested that “the version [Erika is] telling us today or yesterday was just recently downloaded into her mind and she therefore thinks it’s true.”
“[It’s] like a faulty memory or something,” Owens argued. “I’m saying I’m not sure that she’s fully aware that she’s lying because some of the lies are so stupid.”
The documentary series digs into Erika’s childhood, including a potential discrepancy over her birthday. Owens points out alleged inconsistencies in Erika’s family tree, sharing a“conspiracy theory” that Erika’s aunt, Karla, may actually be her biological mother. (Erika, 37, has always maintained that her biological parents are Kent and Lori Frantzve.)
Owens takes issue with Erika saying that she was born on November 20, 1988, in Cincinnati, Ohio. The commentator showed alleged excerpts from Kent and Lori’s 1998 divorce filings, where they allegedly state that their daughter was born on November 22 of the same year. (Owens clarifies that the divorce petition was filed by Lori and only has “four statements of fact,” or very little personal information.)
Owens also questioned Kent and Lori stating in their divorce petition that they wed on November 20, 1995, which would have been Erika’s 7th birthday. A separation agreement enclosed with the divorce petition offers a completely different marriage date of November 7, 1982.
Owens additionally disputes Erika’s past comments that she was raised mostly by a single mother after her parents’ divorce in 1998, alleging there is contradictory information suggesting Kent was still actively involved in her life at the time.
“I have spoken to classmates, past boyfriends, and people are generally bewildered about why Erika is now representing that she does not have a relationship with Kent,” Owens claimed. “Also, if we remove Kent, Erika was raised with her stepfather [Larry] in her home.”
Us Weekly has reached out to representatives for Erika and Turning Point USA for comment.
Owens, a former Turning Point USA communications director, has grown increasingly critical of Erika since Charlie was fatally shot while speaking at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, on September 10, 2025. (A 22-year-old male was arrested in connection with the shooting on September 11, 2025, but has yet to enter a plea.)
In January, Owens leaked alleged audio of Erika, reportedly recorded during a Turning Point USA conference call less than two weeks after Charlie’s death. In the audio, Erika described her late husband’s public memorial as “an event of a century” and said that the organization was “at, like, over 200,000 for merch sale.”
“That’s moving pretty quickly to the acceptance phase now,” Owens told her viewers. “We know everybody grieves differently. In my imagination, I just thought she would be more upset.”
Meanwhile, Erika — whose husband Charlie was honored by President Donald Trump in his State of the Union speech on Tuesday, February 24 — paid tribute to the Turning Point USA founder in honor of her 37th birthday on February 20.
“I always loved celebrating you, and maybe because it was a reflection of how beautifully you always celebrated me. I romanticized growing old with you, the love of my life,” she shared via Instagram. “I used to wonder what our faces would look like with wisdom-wrinkles. You’d always tell me how you hoped I’d keep my long hair even when we were both gray and also that l’a always wear white (because it was the color you loved me wearing the most).”
The activist went on, “We’d laugh about how you’d probably still be out on college campuses in your 80s, doing ‘Prove Me Wrong’ campus events because you loved those students. And then we’d both start to tear up when talking about our babies growing older and having a family of their own. A full life.”
“Today, I find myself, in some way, still romanticizing growing old with you, just in different locations,” Erika continued. “So as I blow out candles this year with an ache so deep I pray no one ever has to feel it, I’m reminded that each day, each moment, each birthday…you’re with me. Not in the way I once dreamed, but in the way God has mercifully allowed.”
Charlie also left behind his and Erika’s two children, a son and daughter, whose names they chose to keep private.
