Charlie Kirk’s 2017 live-stream crash—viewed by millions—moved Candace Owens, who feared his legacy would end with death rather than achievements. Their early Turning Point USA collaboration began at Chicago’s Macaroni Grill, where Charlie sketched a bold plan to dominate the RNC and emulate Rush Limbaugh’s influence. Bound by rules like "never say no to Fox News" and Owens’ sobriety, they thrived on relentless work, even debating through hurricane road trips. Kirk’s humor—from Kanye West’s Yeezy gift to mocking Franci’s surname—and his defiance of protesters (like a Philadelphia Antifa egg attack) showcased their unshakable bond. Despite #MeToo backlash and political tensions, their friendship endured, shaping careers and personal milestones, proving loyalty over ideology. [Automatically generated summary]
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 makes me, it just really makes me happy that that happened, actually.
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.
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.
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.
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.
He flips over this little paper menu as we're waiting for our flight.
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.
And what he had envisioned was for Turning Point USA to become the biggest conservative student organization, not just in the nation, by the way, but in the world.
He kind of squabbled and squibbled and wrote that the structure is currently a 501c3 and he's sitting there talking to me, but here's what we can do in the future.
And here's how, and then I'm going to probably take control.
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.
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.
You know, we have to work harder.
My rule was like, I was like, we shouldn't drink.
Everybody in politics is drinking.
They're drunk all the time.
If we're passionate, we have to understand that it's a disadvantage.
There are so many people that will test your character along the way.
Like I said, I was a nobody.
It was funny going through text messages yesterday and I'm like, Charlie, my goal is to have 50,000 followers on Instagram.
I think we can do it by the end of the year.
And after he hired me, he had been working already really hard on doing this campus tour throughout California.
He called it the big three.
UCLA, we're going to do Stanford.
We're going to do Berkeley.
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.
Because like I said, people were not going to buy tickets to hear me and Charlie Kirk speak.
And he had someone that they definitely would hear speak.
And for whatever reason, and this was just my luck, Charlie was pumping gas.
He was inside of the gas station.
And I'm sitting in the car and I see this person.
His phone is sitting in the car and the messages are lighting up on the screen and this individual saying, I don't want to do this event with that new girl you hired.
Like I, I don't want to share the stage with her, essentially.
And then if she wants to come on and be an auxiliary, that's fine, but I don't want to share the stage with her, this newbie.
I remember Charlie gets in the car and he looks at the message and he looks at me.
He knows I've looked at the message.
I saw him like, Charlie, I said, I have no idea like where this is going.
Obviously, I understand that the sensible you doesn't want to lose this person on the ticket, that this means a lot to you and you've worked hard on it.
But you're going to have to learn that you have to make the right decision and not the easy decision.
When I was reading through the chat today, I was just laughing with just tears in my eyes, thinking of the many road trips that we took, so many hours spent just talking trash to one another, making fun of one another.
One of the best moments that I can think of, and there are so many to choose from, was we were driving through Colorado and I put on a Kanye song, you know, on my playlist.
And Charlie goes, Is this, is this Jay-Z?
I almost made him pull over the vehicle.
I was like, Are you kidding me?
Okay, I understand that you don't do culture, but like, come on, you don't know the difference between Jay-Z and Kanye.
And he didn't.
And I explained to him the difference.
I was like, no, you gotta, you gotta get into some Kanye West music.
Next thing you know, Charlie's really getting into some Kanye West music.
And yeah, it just, it was one of those moments where Charlie, he had good character.
But the prep for every one of those events, like even the him too event, it was always Kanye.
it is just literally me charlie and uh sarah who was his assistant at the time just playing the hype music Charlie and I fought a lot of battles together.
I mean, of course, who could forget the infamous day that we got chased out of a Philadelphia restaurant by Antifa, and they threw water and they threw an egg on Charlie.
I personally think some of the protesters liked that Charlie and I were making light fun of them.
I don't even know what campus event this is, but I love this video of me just playing with the protesters sitting in front of one of their signs and Charlie speaking over my shoulder.
unidentified
Take a listen.
If you aren't wealthy, white, and male, Charlie Kirk is not your friend.
What are you doing?
He's not my friend anymore.
Are we not friends?
Is that right?
So I'm going to find out.
A sign outside of a thing in an event that we just did.
And you're not my friend.
Go figure.
Looking back at too many photos, I just have too many photos with Charlie.
It really is incredible to see how many times he's just right behind my back.
Charlie always had my back and I always had his.
Charlie was right by my side when I started Blexit, obviously.
He was also there the night that I met my husband, which was absolutely an incredible night.
And in the UK, which I didn't expect to happen.
And I got to tell you, initially, Charlie ever, the analytical mind, what I told him, I'm like, oh, I think I'm going to marry this guy first.
He's like, wait, wait, is this going to be good for your brand?
But Charlie, this is love.
This is not a brand decision.
And then he sat down and he spent just one evening with George.
And Charlie was just the most supportive of everything.
And this is our text chain speaking about that moment.
Our relationship was forged in fire, the fire of politics.
I knew him.
I knew Charlie, the real Charlie.
And Charlie knew the real Candace, you know.
And people knew I didn't like a lot of people in politics.
I didn't like a lot of people calling me and doing the political dance.
Of course, people guessed it correctly when they said, oh, the person who probably was the intermediary when Trump called about Brigitte was Charlie Kirk.
Of course, it was Charlie.
They would never send anybody else to call me with anything because they knew that Charlie was a brother to me.
And there was so many things that were said that were wrong.
And we laughed at how wrong it was when people thought that when I had made up my mind about Israel, that Charlie and me fell apart.
Nope.
Never, not for a second.
I said, it's the easiest decision ever because Charlie knew who I was and I knew who he was.
I said, Charlie, this is where I'm at.
And there's no room for movement.
And you tell your whoever that needs to hear it, whatever you need to tell them, because we're always going to be brothers and sisters.
You know, we're always going to be brother and sister.
And we would talk about things and debate things behind the scenes.
And I think my perspective was as it's been throughout our relationship.
You might not get it now, Charlie, but you will.
I'm only a few years old, you a few years older than you, but I think you're gonna see things my way.
And I think in the end, Charlie, Charlie was going through a spiritual transformation.
I don't think it, I know it.
He was going through a lot, and there was a lot of pressure.
And it's hard for me to watch the people who were pressuring him, I don't know, just say the things that they're saying.
You know, I just, there's something about it that just feels really fake, feels really fake to me.
And they would have allowed him to lose and wanted him to lose everything for changing or even slightly modifying an opinion.
And then to see them doing what they're doing today, it's hurtful to me.
It's very hurtful to me.
But I don't want today to be about anything other than you guys knowing that Charlie really was an amazing person.
You know, he was like, we were really close.
And he was, he was my best friend and my brother.
And I will never unsee the footage of what I saw, the violence of it.
I pray for the people who took any pleasure in that.
I would never, there's not a single person in the world that I would wish that on.
And least of all, someone with a heart like Charlie's.
He loved his family, he loved his wife, he loved his country.
And he didn't deserve that ending.
You know, he's really young.
But I know that we will carry the torch.
I will never allow the memory of Charlie to be forgotten, obviously, because there is no Candace without Charlie.
Came Up In Politics00:00:21
unidentified
You know, we came up in politics together.
And so I don't know what else to say, guys, other than I'm in a lot of paint right now.