The claim arose in an X post by Spencer Hakimian quoting Erika Kirk, who had condemned commentators for laughing about her husband's killing. Charlie Kirk was assassinated on September 10, 2025, at Utah Valley University, and his public memorial took place on September 21, 2025, at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. Hakimian's short comment, "You sold merch at his funeral," was aimed at Erika Kirk and implies that she personally sold merchandise at that memorial event.
What is documented is an online merchandise release. Snopes identified at least six $35 T-shirts listed on Turning Point USA's online store after Kirk's death, with listings appearing from as early as September 11 and continuing through September 16. Newsweek and Fox News also reported on Turning Point USA commemorative shirts and items released through its website ahead of the memorial, with Fox News noting that online orders could take up to 12 weeks to ship because of high demand. Those reports describe merchandise sold through Turning Point USA's online store, not a sales operation inside the stadium.
Snopes's review of the memorial itself found a different picture. Snopes concluded there was no evidence to connect Erika Kirk to those listings and no tangible proof of anyone selling the products at the memorial. Photographs of the September 21 memorial showed attendees wearing items of the kind sold online, but Snopes could not identify any stations selling the merchandise in the photographs. The timeline also matters: several listings appeared before Erika Kirk became chief executive and chair of Turning Point USA on September 18, and Snopes said it contacted the organization about who ordered the online sale and whether items were sold physically at the memorial.
A separate strand of online sales adds to the potential for confusion. The Guardian documented foreign e-commerce companies, including Guangzhou Shiwei Network Technology in China, promoting Kirk-themed shirts through social media ads, despite having no affiliation with Turning Point USA. That reporting shows a wide online market for Kirk merchandise after his death, but it does not show sales at the funeral, and a Turning Point USA official told the Guardian that one of those brands was not affiliated with the organization.
Taken together, the claim conflates a real online merchandise release with a physical sale at the funeral and attributes the activity personally to Erika Kirk without evidence. That shift in location and actor would materially change what a reasonable reader believes about the event, even though commemorative merchandise was genuinely sold online. For that reason, the claim is misleading, although the absence of a direct public denial from Turning Point USA in the reporting means the conclusion rests on the lack of tangible evidence for a funeral sale rather than absolute proof that no item could have changed hands there.
