Shortly after conservative think tank Turning Point USA held its alternative "All-American" halftime show during Bad Bunny's Super Bowl performance on Feb. 8, 2026, a video (archived) circulated online claiming to depict the group's CEO Erika Kirk making a splashy entrance.
The video drew online ire, with many claiming Erika Kirk was being disrespectful to her late husband, Charlie Kirk, who was fatally shot in September 2025. Others claimed the video was artificial intelligence.
The claim spread to multiple social media platforms, including Reddit, Facebook and other X accounts, garnering millions of views.
The video was authentic, meaning it was not digitally altered or generated with AI — but it did not depict Kirk. The X user who posted the original video confirmed it was meant humorously in a follow-up post (archived), writing: "Do I really have to mention, this is a joke?" We reached out to the user's Signal contact seeking comment and did not immediately receive a response. We will update this story if we do.
The woman in the video was Charlotte Flair, a pro wrestler. The footage depicted Flair making her entrance at WrestleMania in 2017.
We reviewed the footage of her performance on Netflix ("WrestleMania 33," at 1:15:46). A small portion of the entrance is featured in a publicly available World Wrestling Entertainment promotional clip (archived).
Publicly available Getty Images from April 2, 2017, show Flair in the same outfit seen in the circulated clip and she also posted an image (archived) of her performance on Instagram in May 2017:
Kirk did not make any appearance during her organization's halftime show, though she later posted about the performance and her late husband on X (archived).