Candace Owens - To My Friend, Charlie Kirk.

00:00:00.000 Well, that has never happened before. I guess we could say Charlie broke the internet one more time. 150,000 of you guys were watching, and the system just sort of crashed. And it just really makes me happy that that happened, actually.

00:00:14.360 It was already very difficult for me to do this for a lot of reasons, but I knew it was important because I didn't want the last thing that people had in their minds about Charlie to be the moment he lost his life. That was what was especially hard because he's just had so many amazing moments throughout his career.

00:00:35.840 And as I was saying, I was having this discussion with George this morning, obviously through a lot of tears, about not wanting Charlie's caricature to survive when the actual Charlie Kirk individual, who Charlie Kirk actually is, is so much more important.

00:00:53.100 And the caricature of the cartoon is that Charlie is this young, smart guy, made a career out of debating college kids, decided not to go to college, started Turning Point USA.

00:01:02.460 And I think a lot of people thought that Charlie must take himself a bit too seriously. And I want you guys to know that that could not be further from the truth.

00:01:12.280 Charlie and me were always laughing. Yes, he was ambitious. Everybody knows Charlie is ambitious.

00:01:18.840 I met him back in 2017 when Turning Point was this very young organization. Nobody knew who I was. Nobody knew who Charlie Kirk was.

00:01:27.740 And Charlie was always wearing these really baggy suits. I mean, they looked like they were hand-me-downs from three generations because he was focused on the ideas.

00:01:36.360 He didn't care about his appearance. He was laser focused on what he knew Turning Point could become.

00:01:42.240 Not could become, but would become. He hired me on the spot. We were at this conference in Florida.

00:01:49.080 And he and I used to always say, we never said the rest, the rest was history. You know, the rest is history. We say the rest is future.

00:01:55.620 We were, we were totally locked in. And I want you guys to know about our first planning sesh. Okay.

00:02:02.140 It was in the middle of Chicago O'Hare Airport. There is this restaurant that's called the Macaroni Grill.

00:02:07.340 And I sat down with Charlie on our first trip together. He flips over this little paper menu as we're waiting for our flight.

00:02:14.680 And he takes out this pen and he just starts drawing a map of what he wants to happen into the future, what the Turning Point organization will become.

00:02:23.660 It was spastic. It was unhinged. It was the absolute best. It was true Charlie. He was a visionary. Charlie was a visionary. 1.00

00:02:32.360 If he could envision it, it was going to happen. He knew that. I knew that. And what he had envisioned was for Turning Point USA to become the biggest conservative student organization.

00:02:42.860 Not just in the nation, by the way, but in the world.

00:02:46.560 He kind of squabbled and swiveled and wrote that his structure is currently a 501c3.

00:02:53.060 And he's sitting there talking to me, but here's what we can do in the future.

00:02:55.420 And here's how and then I'm going to probably take control of the RNC.

00:02:58.600 I mean, he's 23 years old, right? And he's talking, speaking to me about how he's going to take over the RNC.

00:03:05.800 The person that he adored the most, like really, never in a million years did he think that he was going to meet him.

00:03:11.660 And of course he did, was Rush Limbaugh. He was really raised on Rush Limbaugh, listening to Rush Limbaugh day in and day out.

00:03:18.520 And he told me through many conversations that if he could have a show like Rush Limbaugh one day, he would be very happy.

00:03:24.340 And that was, I think, his ultimate goal. And it happened.

00:03:27.800 We had a bunch of rules. Charlie's rule was never say no to Fox News.

00:03:33.080 So even if the show was at 4 a.m. in the morning, crack of dawn, I cannot tell you guys how many hits we did on Fox News.

00:03:40.420 I'm talking four hits a day up at 4 a.m. for Fox and Friends first and then doing whatever the evening program was because he believed this is the way that we're going to get our names out there.

00:03:50.660 You know, we have to work harder. My rule was like, I was like, we shouldn't drink.

00:03:55.520 Everybody in politics is drinking. They're drunk all the time. If we're passionate, we have to understand that it's a disadvantage.

00:04:02.220 People are always made weaker. It doesn't make anybody stronger to be drunk after an event.

00:04:06.980 And so we didn't drink. And we had a motto, a couple of mottos, but Charlie's was we can always outwork our opponents.

00:04:14.740 I can't tell you how many times we look to each other and we said we cannot work them. Everyone was bigger than us, but not working harder than us.

00:04:21.680 I came really directly from Charlie. It was the thing that he said we could always control.

00:04:27.540 And I totally agreed with that. Work ethic meant everything.

00:04:31.000 I think it's very obvious to everyone. I was the culture. Charlie was the politics. Charlie needed a little bit more culture.

00:04:39.160 I needed to learn the rules of politics. I mean, he could tell you every office in the White House and what this person does, things I'd never even heard before.

00:04:46.200 I was just passionate about Black Lives Matter. I just I knew it was going to be harmful for Black Americans. 1.00

00:04:51.840 And I wanted to share that message. And Charlie showed me how to do that in the best way possible.

00:05:00.140 I learned very quickly with Charlie that politics breeds unnecessary enemies.

00:05:04.620 It is incredibly it's disheartening industry. You know, you're lucky if you have one friend.

00:05:11.220 You're lucky if you have two friends. There are so many people that will test your character along the way.

00:05:17.300 Like I said, I was a nobody. I was funny going through text messages yesterday and I'm like, Charlie,

00:05:21.480 my goal is to have 50,000 followers on Instagram. I think we can do it by the end of the year.

00:05:27.320 And after he hired me, he had been working already really hard on doing this campus tour throughout California.

00:05:35.380 He called it the big three UCLA. We're going to Stanford. We're going to do Berkeley.

00:05:39.600 And there was somebody who was a lot bigger than me at the time who was going to be kind of the face of it,

00:05:46.380 because like I said, people were not going to buy tickets to hear me and Charlie Kirk speak.

00:05:49.600 Like, and he had someone that they definitely would hear speak.

00:05:53.100 And for whatever reason, and this was just my luck, Charlie was pumping gas.

00:05:57.820 He was inside of the inside of the gas station and I'm sitting in the car and I see this person.

00:06:01.980 His phone is sitting in the car and the messages are lighting up on the screen.

00:06:05.080 And this individual saying, I don't want to do this event with that new girl you hired.

00:06:09.320 Like, I don't want to share the stage with her, essentially. Just mean. I mean, just mean-spirited.

00:06:13.940 No reason. I'm bigger than her. I should do this by myself.

00:06:17.840 And then if she wants to come on and be an auxiliary, that's fine.

00:06:20.520 I don't want to share the stage with her, this newbie.

00:06:23.460 I remember Charlie gets in the car and he looks at the message and he looks at me and he knows I've looked at the message.

00:06:29.800 I saw him like, Charlie, I said, I have no idea, like, where this is going.

00:06:35.360 Obviously, I understand that the sensible you doesn't want to lose this person on the ticket.

00:06:41.240 That this means a lot to you and you've worked hard on it.

00:06:44.300 But you're going to have to learn that you have to make the right decision and not the easy decision.

00:06:50.440 And this is only going to work if we keep making the right decisions, you know.

00:06:54.120 And I could just see the struggle within him. And then he just, he did the right thing.

00:06:59.940 He said, okay, we don't want to do this event with this newbie, Candice.

00:07:02.880 Then we're not going to do the event and Candice and I will do it alone.

00:07:06.580 And we did. We went, we went at it alone.

00:07:08.660 Actually, I think for that particular event, Dave Rubin hopped on and the rest was future.

00:07:14.700 For two years straight, Charlie and I flew around the world together on very little sleep.

00:07:19.880 We were always exhausted. I'm not kidding.

00:07:21.480 We took hundreds of flights together. We slept in the crappiest hotel rooms.

00:07:26.640 I mean, walls so paper thin. I could, you just hear everything.

00:07:31.900 And when you're in that capacity with someone two years straight, just traveling nonstop,

00:07:36.960 you really get to know them. You really see them in every condition.

00:07:41.820 You start bickering like an old married couple. 0.96

00:07:44.300 Charlie, this is not how you pack a suitcase, I say to him.

00:07:46.400 Charlie, you can't just like put your dirty running shoes on top of your clean shirts.

00:07:50.180 Okay. You just can't do that. Charlie, you can't, you need to eat something. Okay.

00:07:52.900 You're running on things. You got to eat something.

00:07:54.760 And this is not, this is not a full meal. Back, forth.

00:07:57.820 Charlie, you got to buy yourself some suits that fit.

00:07:59.740 That conversation, I was like, Charlie, okay, I get it.

00:08:02.040 You're like, boy, wander. You got to buy some suits that fit.

00:08:05.040 I wasn't the only one that was hammering him on that.

00:08:07.200 It was also Don Jr.

00:08:08.520 And eventually him, and I think it was actually him and Eric, they're like, you know, Charlie,

00:08:14.860 I know you're very frugal. We know that you're very aware that your salary comes from donors.

00:08:19.740 He always wanted to be a really good steward of their capital.

00:08:22.680 But eventually Don and Eric got him a gift certificate, I think it was for his birthday,

00:08:27.160 to a fancy suit place to go get fitted.

00:08:29.300 And the rest, the rest is future, right?

00:08:34.040 I, it is so important for me to make sure that you guys understand how absolutely hilarious Charlie

00:08:41.360 was. Charlie was hilarious. Okay. He did not take himself too seriously. He was so good at doing

00:08:49.740 imitations and accents. Anybody, any imitation, any accent, he was just on the money. And all we did

00:08:56.440 was laugh. It's all you can do and laugh. People were just so crazy all the time.

00:09:00.380 When I was reading through the chat today, I was just laughing with just tears in my eyes,

00:09:04.580 thinking of the many road trips that we took, so many hours spent just talking trash to one another,

00:09:10.600 making fun of one another. One of the best moments that I can think of, and there are so many to

00:09:15.740 choose from, was we were driving through Colorado and I put on a Kanye song, you know, on my playlist.

00:09:23.160 And Charlie goes, is this, is this Jay-Z? I almost made him pull over the vehicle. I was like,

00:09:29.360 are you kidding me? Okay. I understand that you don't do culture, but like, come on,

00:09:32.200 you don't know the difference between Jay-Z and Kanye. And he didn't. And I explained to him a

00:09:37.740 difference. I was like, okay, no, you gotta, you gotta get into some Kanye West music.

00:09:41.180 Next thing you know, Charlie's really getting into some Kanye West music. He's running 10 miles a day.

00:09:46.180 He got really into running and he's texting me about how great it is. Like there's this text,

00:09:51.880 Charlie. He's like, yes, it's my new favorite, it's my new favorite song. And he, he just loved it.

00:09:58.740 Kanye's power kind of became our, our theme song for the tour. I have no idea why, but that was our

00:10:05.340 hype song before we went on stage. So you can only imagine when just a couple of months later,

00:10:11.580 we've been listening to Kanye's old albums on repeat. Suddenly Kanye West tweets,

00:10:16.380 I love the way Candace Owens thinks. The excitement. Okay. We were certain that we had

00:10:23.380 manifested it. We were a hundred percent. We manifested this by listening to power on repeat.

00:10:29.900 Actually, I found a clip of us backstage, um, on that day when that tweet happened and we were

00:10:36.000 doing what I used to refer to as like the Charlie dance. Here it is.

00:10:41.580 The era of Kanye. I can't even explain it because, um, you really did have to be there.

00:10:58.500 Charlie was my overly bright and sometimes really annoying kid brother. I was smiling going through

00:11:05.340 my chat of how many times he would text me a picture and say, does this look cool? Does this

00:11:09.420 look cool? Do I look cool? This is like just a screen recording of us talking about a pair of

00:11:13.920 sunglasses. He's just sending me and I'm like, nah, that's not good. Nope. That's not. No,

00:11:18.240 no. Send. Okay. That one's okay. That'll work. And, um, this is actually one of my favorite photos of him

00:11:25.560 where he said, I could just hear him when I look at this photo, I can hear him saying,

00:11:31.060 does this look cool? He was wearing a pair of Yeezys that, uh, Kanye gave him and he looks really cool.

00:11:37.760 I thought they really suited him. I was like, yeah, you look, you look really cool, Charlie.

00:11:42.840 Um, the reverse of that obviously was him constantly hammering me on debates. I mean,

00:11:48.840 Charlie was like, look, you gotta, you gotta know the arguments of your opponents backward and

00:11:54.160 forward. I remember I had note cards, like I was in high school, just memorizing every statistic and

00:11:59.140 being strengthened by, you know, just day in and day out where he was just pretending to be a

00:12:03.520 protester, pretending to be a radical. Uh, and he used to always say iron sharpens iron.

00:12:08.840 And we spent so much time practicing debating and really thinking through what our ideas

00:12:13.680 were. Charlie never missed a meeting that he had. He wouldn't do that. He took that very seriously.

00:12:20.960 It doesn't matter what the circumstance was, even if it was a hurricane. And one day there was

00:12:25.000 literally a hurricane. I think we were in North Carolina, South Carolina at the time. I don't remember,

00:12:28.760 but all of the flights got canceled and we needed to be in DC by morning. And Charlie looks at me,

00:12:33.560 he's like, we got to rent a car. We got to drive eight hours. Totally insane. And one of the most

00:12:40.400 fun, uh, road trips I've had in my life. Every single song was sung. We were always, me and Charlie

00:12:46.520 were always singing in cars. To show you, this is from that road trip.

00:12:50.260 And then of course, there was always some hip hop mixed in. Ignition, remix.

00:13:05.000 You look cool, Charlie. You look cool. We really did go everywhere. I mean, all 50 states,

00:13:27.720 Canada, down to the border, the United Kingdom, Israel, you name it, we were there. And there

00:13:32.480 was always a new t-shirt to print out. Justice for Brett Kavanaugh. Sends to me. How's this one?

00:13:39.260 I love it. We just loved the t-shirts. That was a thing. The Him Too one, that was controversial.

00:13:44.580 That was a controversial moment. One of those character forming moments. I won't forget it.

00:13:49.300 Because that Me Too hashtag, it just started going viral and people were emotional. And right away,

00:13:53.880 I was like, Me Too's awful. This is terrible for women. It's terrible for men. You know,

00:13:58.820 just me being Candace saying the thing. And left and right, people were hammering me. It was like,

00:14:05.100 how dare you say that we need due process? We're talking about rape. And I remember he had

00:14:11.460 young women at Turning Point who were threatening to quit, crying in the office. How could she not

00:14:17.100 support Me Too? Young women who did quit? And then we had, at the same time, the YWLS conference.

00:14:25.440 So the reporters who already hated us just completely, they just swooped in there and

00:14:30.780 they were like, oh, do you support her statements? And I just remember just being behind Charlie and

00:14:36.040 Andrew Colva. And he just held the line. He held the line because he agreed with me. And he knew it was

00:14:40.340 going to be a bit of fire. People are like, you've got to fire her. How could she say this? 0.71

00:14:43.940 And he didn't. He held the line. And yeah, it just, it was one of those moments where Charlie,

00:14:49.800 he had good character. But the prep for every one of those events, like even the Him Too event,

00:14:55.480 it was always Kanye. Here it is.

00:14:57.700 Just literally, me, Charlie, and Sarah, who was his assistant at the time, just playing the hype

00:15:17.700 music. Charlie and I fought a lot of battles together. I mean, of course, who could forget

00:15:23.600 the infamous day that we got chased out of a Philadelphia restaurant by Antifa. And they 0.99

00:15:30.060 threw water and they threw an egg on Charlie. We were just amazed at how quickly they had

00:15:35.320 assembled once they found out what restaurant we were at. But I want you to watch him here.

00:15:40.660 Like, even in this moment of shock and adversity, he finds a reason to smile. And it's incredible.

00:15:46.700 Take a look at this.

00:16:00.540 That was Charlie. That was Charlie, man. That was always his main thing. Be a happy warrior. And he

00:16:10.480 was a happy warrior. And we were happy warriors. And we laughed a lot at the protesters, the absurdity

00:16:17.560 of the protesters always. I personally think some of the protesters liked that Charlie and I were

00:16:23.320 making light fun of them. I don't even know what campus event this is, but I love this video of me

00:16:30.240 just playing with the protesters, sitting in front of one of their signs and Charlie speaking over my

00:16:35.380 shoulder. Take a listen.

00:16:36.500 If you aren't wealthy, white, and male, Charlie Kirk is not your friend. What do you think?

00:16:41.360 Are you not my friend anymore?

00:16:42.380 Are we not friends? Is that right?

00:16:43.800 This is how I'm going to find out. This is how I'm going to find out. A sign outside of a thing and an event that

00:16:47.140 we just did that you're not my friend.

00:16:48.900 Go figure.

00:16:51.720 Looking back at too many photos, I just have too many photos of Charlie. It really is incredible to see how

00:16:57.460 many times he's just right behind my back. Charlie always had my back and I always had his.

00:17:03.360 Charlie was right by my side when I started Blexit, obviously. He was also there the night that I met

00:17:13.300 my husband, which was absolutely an incredible night. And in the UK, which I didn't expect to

00:17:21.380 happen. I got to tell you, initially, Charlie, ever the analytical mind, when I told him, I'm like,

00:17:27.820 oh, I think I'm going to marry this guy first. He's like, wait, wait, wait, like, is this going to be

00:17:31.020 good for your brand? Like, Charlie, this is love. This is not a brand decision. And then he sat down

00:17:36.760 and he spent just one evening with George and he, Charlie, was just the most supportive of

00:17:42.500 everything. And this is our text chain speaking about that moment. He's like, his heart is wonderful.

00:17:47.320 You guys are meant for each other. I see it brilliantly and clearly. And he gets it. He isn't

00:17:53.180 afraid of you being you. And he he's been through hell. And it was, uh, yeah, Charlie was by my side

00:17:59.960 the day that I got married. Of course he was by my side. Um, you know, when I got married to George

00:18:04.260 and of course, uh, Charlie fell in love with Erica. That entire journey to me when I was reading through

00:18:11.520 a text is so funny because, uh, it was exceptional. I was always leaning into Charlie's analytical mind and

00:18:17.860 making fun of him. Like, oh, all we need to do is get a plan. You love Erica. Okay. What's the plan?

00:18:21.540 What are we going to do? What's step one? What's step two? And the plan that I came up with instantly

00:18:24.800 was all we have to do is convince her that her last name is terrible. Her last name, she's got, 0.97

00:18:28.760 she's got to marry you because it's practical. Kirk is going to, Mrs. Erica Kirk sounds so much better

00:18:33.880 than Mrs. Eric, Miss Erica Francie. What is that last name? It's a practical decision. This is the,

00:18:40.640 the text chain from that Charlie and Erica Kirk. He says, it's going to be the power couple of a

00:18:45.200 century. I need to continue to pray about it. I said, her last name's dumb. She literally needs you to 1.00

00:18:49.360 propose. It's way too complicated. He said, and he said, I'm going to tell her it sounds like a

00:18:52.500 sneeze. It's horrible. And then I wrote, marry me. It's a logistics thing. That's just who we were.

00:18:57.960 Always making fun and always wanting to know what the plan was. And obviously it worked. You guys,

00:19:04.000 all it worked. Our plan worked. We broke Erica down. First came the name shame, then came the wedding

00:19:09.640 and then came the children. You know, Charlie really loved, really, really loved Erica from a time

00:19:15.520 reading through the text today. Just loved her. He loved his family. He really did.

00:19:21.080 And I just want to say that Charlie and I, because I think this is important, never for a single minute

00:19:26.360 ever did Charlie and I stop being friends. Even when the world demanded that from both of us,

00:19:33.240 our relationship was, it was real. We were brother and sister. You know, we were fortified.

00:19:39.480 Our relationship was forged in fire, the fire of politics. I knew him. I knew Charlie,

00:19:43.680 the real Charlie. And Charlie knew the real Candace, you know, and people knew I didn't like a lot of

00:19:50.200 people in politics. I didn't like a lot of people calling me and doing the political dance.

00:19:55.680 Of course, people guessed it correctly when they said, oh, the person who probably was the intermediary

00:20:02.260 when Trump called about Brigitte was Charlie Kirk. Of course it was Charlie. They would never send

00:20:07.040 anybody else to call me with anything because they knew that Charlie was a brother to me.

00:20:10.460 And there was, um, so many things that were said that were wrong. Uh, and we laughed at how wrong

00:20:19.640 it was when people thought that when I had made up my mind about Israel, that Charlie and me fell

00:20:25.220 apart. Nope, never, not for a second. I said, it's the easiest decision ever because Charlie knew who I

00:20:31.460 was and I knew who he was. I said, Charlie, this is, this is where I'm at and there's no room for

00:20:37.200 movement. And you tell your, whoever that needs to hear it, whatever you need to tell them, because

00:20:43.520 we're always going to be brothers and sisters, you know, we're always going to be brother and sister.

00:20:48.280 And we would talk about things and debate things behind the scenes. And I think my perspective was

00:20:55.680 as it's been throughout our relationship, like, uh, you might not get it now, Charlie, but you will.

00:20:59.960 I'm only a few years old, a few years older than you, but, um, I think you're gonna, you're gonna see

00:21:04.740 things my way. And I think, um, I think, uh, in the end, Charlie, Charlie was going through a spiritual

00:21:15.040 transformation. I don't think it, I know it. He was going through a lot and there was a lot of

00:21:19.940 pressure and it's hard for me to watch the people who were pressuring him. I don't know, just say the

00:21:27.520 things that they're saying, you know, I just, there's something about it that just feels really

00:21:31.620 fake, feels really fake to me. And, um, they would have allowed him to lose and wanted him to lose

00:21:38.140 everything for changing or even slightly modifying an opinion. And then to see them doing what they're

00:21:46.360 doing today, it's hurtful to me. It's very hurtful to me, but I don't want today to be about anything

00:21:51.640 other than you guys knowing that Charlie really was an amazing person. You know, he was like,

00:21:57.340 we were really close and he was, he was my best friend and my brother. And I will never

00:22:05.820 unsee the footage of what I saw, the violence of it. Um, I pray for the people who took any pleasure in

00:22:16.940 that. I would never, there's not a single person in the world that I would wish that on. And least

00:22:24.280 of all, someone with a heart like Charlie's, he loved his family, he loved his wife, he loved his

00:22:28.020 country. And, um, he didn't deserve that ending. You know, he's really young, but I know that, um,

00:22:36.800 we will carry the torch. I will never allow the memory of Charlie to be forgotten, obviously,

00:22:41.800 because there is no Candace without Charlie, you know, we came up in politics together. And so

00:22:47.900 I don't know what else to say guys, other than, um,

00:22:52.420 a lot of paint right now and I love you, Charlie. And, you know,

00:22:58.300 I'll see you when I, when I'll see you. Uh, I love you very much. Thank you guys.

00:23:11.800 Thank you.

Candace Owens - September 11, 2025

To My Friend, Charlie Kirk.

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