Erika Kirk, widely recognized as the nation’s most prominent widow, found herself in the spotlight as a special guest at the State of the Union address on Tuesday.

President Donald Trump extended an invitation to Erika, the widow of the late conservative activist Charlie Kirk, to attend his speech. The invitation aimed to emphasize the need for Congress to “firmly reject political violence against our fellow citizens,” according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

However, Erika’s appearance coincides with the release of a controversial ‘investigative’ series set to air on Wednesday. This series is produced by her MAGA-movement adversary, Candace Owens, a well-known and contentious podcaster.

The series, titled “Bride of Charlie,” aims to scrutinize Erika’s actions following her husband’s tragic assassination at Utah Valley University last September.

A promotional trailer teases a series of clips insinuating that Erika may have been capitalizing on, or even relishing, her new status as a widow.

Since January, Erika has maintained a relatively low profile. This follows the leak of a video conference by Owens, which showed Erika sharing laughter with employees of Turning Point USA, the organization founded by her late husband, just two weeks after his passing.

Owens – who has expended much of her energy in recent months spreading obscene conspiracies about the murder of her former friend Charlie – criticized Erika for appearing to be ‘extraordinarily upbeat.’ 

Days after the conference call leak, it was noted by many that Erika chose not to attend Turning Point USA’s alternative ‘All-America Halftime Show’ during the Super Bowl.

Cut forward a fortnight, and Erika found herself at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday evening just hours after a judge in Utah denied a request to disqualify the prosecution team in the case against Tyler Robinson, the man accused of killing Charlie.

Robinson’s defense lawyers had argued that prosecutors should be ousted from the case because of a conflict of interest arising from the fact that one of them has an 18-year-old child who attended the Utah Valley University event at which Charlie was killed.

But Utah District Court Judge Tony Graf ruled Tuesday that the child’s attendance ‘did not materially influence’ the actions of prosecutors.

37-year-old Erika was catapulted to global fame when she vowed to carry on her husband’s political legacy after his assassination.

Some in the conservative movement have praised her for putting aside her personal anguish and taking over as head of Turning Point USA in a time of crisis for the group, which advocates for right-wing politics at high schools and on college campuses. 

Those boosters include Trump himself, who attended Charlie’s revival-style memorial in an Arizona football stadium last September.

Others in the MAGA movement have cruelly derided Erika for supposedly ‘abandoning’ her two young children for a slew of public appearances, including a 30-city speaking engagement that she calls the ‘Make Heaven Crowded Tour 2026.’

Critics in certain subsets of social media, on both the political right and left, have also questioned her authenticity, saying her public appearances in bold makeup and sequined pantsuits – often with explosions of indoor pyrotechnics on-stage behind her – seem rehearsed, performative or even fake.

Some go so far as to accuse her of ‘using’ her husband’s assassination for personal gain.

Nothing, her critics might say, supports that claim quite so much as the video recording leaked by Owens last month, who used to work for Charlie as Turning Point’s communications director.

The conference call took place around two weeks after Charlie Kirk’s murder. The call was chaired by Erika, who can be heard congratulating staff for their hard work on her late husband’s memorial service, which she described, while at times giggling, as ‘an event of the century’.

‘I think we’re at like 200,000 for merch sales. Don’t quote me on that, because I think it just keeps bumping up like crazy,’ she says, noting the event – which was held at a stadium in Arizona – brought in 300,000 new donors and 50,000 ‘new hat orders’.

‘It’s weird to say I’m excited. I really hesitate saying that. It’s really hard for me to say that. It’s a really weird thing to say,’ she continued.

‘But I think it comes from a space of peace knowing that God is using this and we’re humbly witnessing the gospel in real time.’

Owens suggested Kirk seems emotionally unfazed by her husband’s death in the call, saying: ‘In my imagination, I just thought that she would be more upset. All of that, all of this makes my skin crawl. It genuinely makes my skin crawl.’

The Daily Mail has spoken with several experts on grief and so-called ‘grief policing’ about the recent obsession many Americans have developed with Kirk’s behavior as a new widow.

And, as her critics will likely be disappointed to learn, those experts say judgments about Kirk reveal less about her ‘true’ state of mind and much more about a broader, national discomfort with death – especially the kind of violent, widely broadcast killing that took her husband down.

‘It reflects our mourning-avoidant, emotion-phobic culture where people tend to make all sorts of quick, uninformed judgments about how people are ‘supposed’ to grieve,’ Dr Alan Wolfelt, a Colorado-based death educator and grief counselor, told the Daily Mail.

Criticism of Kirk began almost immediately after her husband’s assassination on September 10 last year, with some eyebrows being raised over the swiftness with which she had been able to launch into political activism so soon after his death.

Others were put off by an apparent anger in her remarks on September 13, when 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.’

And others still questioned the wisdom of her not leveling with her children about their father’s death. She instead initially told them: ‘Don’t you worry. He’s on a work trip with Jesus.’

But grief experts say hers was a common mistake families make with young children.

‘People get really scared about how to talk to their kids about death,’ said Claire Bidwell Smith, a Los Angeles-based grief therapist and author.

‘Often they do it wrong, not talking about it in plain terms, but using a lot of euphemisms that are really confusing.’

The social media firestorm only really kicked off when, still in the early days after the shooting, Kirk posted Instagram images of herself draped over her husband’s open casket and holding his embalmed hand. Some commenters thought the pictures gratuitous.

Things stepped up further still on September 18, eight days after the assassination, when Turning Point USA officially announced Kirk’s appointment as CEO of the group her husband had founded in 2012.

Some speculated that it was too soon to make such an appointment and too early for Kirk, now a single mother of a one and three-year-old, to accept it. 

Others said the former Miss Arizona USA wasn’t qualified for the job.

At the September 21 memorial service, held at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Kirk used her eulogy to directly address Tyler Robinson, the 22-year-old Southern Utah student accused of killing her husband.

‘That young man, I forgive him… because it was what Christ did and… what Charlie would do… The answer to hate is not hate… love for our enemies,’ she said, dressed in all white, her hands decorated with large gold rings.

Her supporters praised those comments as an act of incredible grace in the face of senseless violence. 

But scores of online critics cruelly mocked her facial expressions, and the tone and delivery of her remarks, describing them as overly theatrical.

Others accused her of moral grandstanding and being ingenuine.

Ever since, similar judgements have continued to swirl about Kirk’s many subsequent high-profile media engagements – which have included multiple major interviews and town halls to discuss her grief, her views on American politics and even her endorsement for a Republican presidential candidate in 2028 (Vice President JD Vance).

Some online critics have suggested that, during these many TV appearances, Kirk’s eyes seem dry even as she dabbing them with tissues.

‘She’s lying. I’ll prove it,’ says YouTuber Nadia Asencio, whose account bio welcomes viewers to ‘a non-partisan channel dedicated to cutting through noise, narratives, and emotional manipulation.’

‘I can tell you that any trained actor can see right through Erika Kirk,’ Asencio says. 

Some have also taken aim at Kirk’s wardrobe – describing sequins and leather pants as inappropriate for a grieving widow – while others have scrutinized her apparent predilection for those on-stage fireworks.

And then there was that prolonged hug she gave JD Vance at a Turning Point event late last year. 

The embrace sparked viral videos and unsubstantiated internet gossip about a possible romantic connection.

Critics opined that Kirk’s behavior was in poor taste for a woman so recently widowed. But Vance is, of course, a married man – now expecting a fourth child.

There has also been focus on Kirk’s personal profit in the wake of her husband’s killing.

Part of her rising wealth comes not only from his life insurance policy and other inherited business ventures, but also from private donations to her and her children, which reportedly have totaled around $10 million.

She is also now cashing in on her husband’s royalties, including from his ‘last’ book which she has been on tour promoting.

Some have highlighted an apparent contradiction here between Kirk’s life as the new CEO of a large organization and her public, conservative urging of young women not to prioritize their careers and instead start a family as soon as possible.

The experts the Daily Mail spoke to were quick to note that Kirk has been an easy target for people who don’t share her or her late husband’s staunch political or religious views. 

There is, they say, also an aspect of sexism at play.

Criticisms of Kirk as angry or confrontational – even when responding to preposterous conspiracies about her husband’s killing – are particularly ‘gendered’.

Nobody would criticize a man for lashing back under such circumstances, the experts say.

‘Widows are uniquely grief-policed – their appearance, their tone and behavior,’ said LA grief therapist Bidwell Smith. ‘There’s this cultural belief that a good widow should look really collapsed and devastated. But grief is not a performance and survival is not a moral failure.’

When grieving people ‘hyper-function’, as Kirk has appeared to do, ‘people throw a lot of negative judgment on that, thinking they feel nothing when, internally, privately, they may be collapsing and not really show it,’ Bidwell Smith added.

Dr Wolfelt similarly suspects that Kirk’s vigor – her insistence on getting up, getting dressed, putting on makeup and fighting for something she believes in every day – is a classic emotional survival tactic.

Kirk’s awkward public appearances, the potentially over-dramatic performances,  don’t necessarily reflect what she is experiencing inwardly, Wolfelt says.

‘There was a lot of pressure on her very fast to appear in public when she likely was experiencing psychic numbing and shock,’ he added. 

‘It’s very likely that what she knew in her head – that her husband was assassinated – hadn’t caught up with her heart. It’s also likely that it could take her months, if not longer, for the tragedy to really sink in for her.’

When the shock of the assassination subsides, Kirk may have much to teach the public about grieving.

The more people to discuss the often taboo issue, demystifying it, the better, experts say.

Fully aware that scores of Americans have been picking apart her grief online, Kirk addressed the unpredictability of mourning on Instagram.

‘There is no linear blueprint for grief,’ she wrote in October. 

‘One day you’re collapsed on the floor crying out the name Jesus in between labored breaths. The next you’re playing with your children in the living room, surrounded by family photos, and feeling a rush of something you can only attempt to define as divinely planted and bittersweet joy as a smile breaks through on your face.’

Neither Erika Kirk nor Turning Point USA responded to the Daily Mail’s requests for comment.