Candace Owens Is Starting Controversy Over Leaked Audio of Erika Kirk on Zoom

In the months since the assassination of Charlie Kirk, right-wing influencer Candace Owens has been touting various conspiracy theories about his death. Now, Owens is revisiting the topic again through a slightly different lens. In a recently published video, Owens shared audio that she claims to be of Erika Kirk, 12 days after Charlie's death.

In the audio, which hasn't been independently verified, Erika allegedly discusses the astounding outpouring of grief but also chuckles. Owens is using this to suggest that she wasn't grieving her husband appropriately. Here's what we know.

"I don't even know where to begin. The fact that we were able to pull off an event of a century, like, it's just insane. We had over 275,000 people that attended and stadium overflow, west gate. Insane, you guys," Kirk apparently says in the clip. "And then you have, was it 100 million? That heard the gospel, and all about Charlie and all about everything that you guys do, and the hard work of Turning Point USA is insane."

"We had thousands that were registered to vote. I think we're at, like, over 200,000 for merch sales. Don't quote me on that because I think it just keeps, like, bumping up like crazy," she apparently added.

She goes on to thank the staff, saying many of them worked insane hours to pull the event off.

"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," she continued. She then discusses her vision for the future of Turning Point, before Candace comes back on screen to explain her problems with the clip.

"It is the general tone that is off-putting. It's the laughter that is off-putting," Owens said. "We are not even weeks after watching your husband be assassinated. We're talking about numbers and metrics that have been hit."

Owens has not provided evidence to prove that the clip is authentic, but she is clearly trying to suggest that Erika did not grieve her husband properly.

Of course, grief can take a wide variety of forms, and because of the high-profile nature of his death, Erika's mind did have to turn quite quickly to logistics. Regardless of whether this was her real reaction or not, it doesn't seem that strange for her to have said these things on a call with co-workers.

Erika's grief is her own, and whether you do or don't agree with her ideas about how the world should work, we don't necessarily need to suggest that she is in some way staining her husband's legacy because she spent some time on a call discussing how amazing it was that so many people attended his memorial service.