The widow of slain right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk is to take his place at the head of youth action campaign group Turning Point USA. 

Erika Kirk has been appointed as the new chief executive and board chair of the organisation, taking over from her husband who was killed in Utah on September 10. 

Two days after her husband’s death, she told supporters: “The movement my husband built will not die”. 

She will now take the helm of the organisation with board members stating this is what her husband had wanted. 

“In prior discussions, Charlie expressed to multiple executives that this is what he wanted in the event of his death,” Turning Point USA said in a statement announcing her appointment. 

Erika Kirk has been grieving the death of her husband publicly over the last few days. 

In an address to the nation, she said: “You have no idea the fire that you have ignited within this wife, the cries of this widow will echo around the world like a battle cry”. 

She vowed to continue her husband’s work. 

“To everyone listening tonight across America, the movement my husband built will not die. It won’t, I refuse to let that happen ... All of us will refuse to let that happen,” she said during the address. 

“No one will ever forget my husband’s name, and I will make sure of it.” 

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Who is Erika Kirk? 

Erika Kirk is the widow of Charlie Kirk and mother of the couple’s two children: a 1-year-old boy and a 3-year-old girl. 

Born Erika Lane Frantzve in 1988, she was raised in a conservative Catholic family. 

Kirk attended Arizona State University, where she studied political science and international relations. She also attended Regis University in Colorado where she was in the women’s basketball team. 

More recently, she got a doctorate in Christian leadership from private evangelical school Liberty University. 

Kirk entered numerous beauty pageants and won Miss Arizona in 2012. 

She also worked as a model and an actor. 

Erika Frantzve, when she was Miss Arizona USA, in 2012. Photo / Getty Images 

She is the founder of Proclaim, a faith-based clothing line, and also host of the “Midweek Rise Up” podcast. 

On her website, she describes herself as “a driven social entrepreneur, passionate ministry leader, and woman of deep faith”. 

She met her husband Charlie in New York in 2019 and they married on May 8, 2021. Turning Point USA is said to have funded the wedding reception, which coincided with the organisation’s ninth anniversary. 

Erika was a frequent attendee at her husband’s events. 

Charlie Kirk was shot and killed during the first event of Turning Point USA’s “American Comeback tour” in Utah. 

Speaking about the day of her husband’s death two days later, Kirk said: “When I got home last night, our daughter just ran into my arms ... and she said, ‘Mommy, I missed you.’ I said, ‘I missed you too, baby.’ She goes, ‘Where’s daddy?’. 

“What do you tell a 3-year-old? She’s three. I said, ‘Baby, daddy loves you so much. Don’t you worry. He’s on a work trip with Jesus so he can afford your blueberry budget’.” 

She often shared glimpses of her family life on social media, without ever sharing the children’s names or faces. 

In a video posted two days ago, she shows her late husband describing their first date to the couple’s daughter. 

She had previously shared the couple’s first date details in a post celebrating their anniversary: 

“Five years ago today, we sat inside Bills Burgers in NYC deep in conversation and banter over theology, philosophy, and politics and at the end, you paused, looked at me and said, ‘I’m going to date you’,” she wrote alongside photos of the couple. 

Erika Kirk is set to speak at a memorial for her late husband on September 21, alongside United States President, and Kirk’s close ally, Donald Trump and Vice-President JD Vance, also a personal friend of Kirk’s. 

- Additional reporting by AFP