Jordana Comiter is an Associate Editor on the Evergreen team at PEOPLE. She has been working at PEOPLE since 2024. Her work has previously appeared in Women's Health Magazine, PopSugar, VeryWell Mind, Business Insider and The Chicago Reader.
Erika Kirk has drawn significant public attention in the months following her late husband's assassination.
The mother of two is the widow of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was fatally shot during a campus event at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10, 2025. Following his death, Turning Point USA -- the conservative organization previously founded by Charlie -- named Erika as the CEO and chairman of the board. That week, members of the board released an open letter saying that Charlie had expressed "this is what he wanted."
Since Erika became CEO of the conservative organization, she's been at the center of several conversations online, with many people revisiting her past and circulating various baseless claims about her -- including one in which she is banned from Romania.
So, is Erika Kirk actually banned from Romania? Here's everything to know about the viral claims.
The allegations that Erika is banned from Romania seem to have stemmed from her connection to the charity Romanian Angels -- which some users on X claimed was linked to child trafficking.
In 2006, Erika founded Everyday Heroes Like You, whose mission is to "promote and propagate the 'everyday heroes' in our communities that have a philanthropic desire to truly make a difference in the lives of others," she previously told Arizona Foothills Magazine.
Everyday Heroes Like You later launched a project known as "Romanian Angels," teaming up with the United States Marine Corps to joint sponsor an orphanage in Constanta, Romania, she explained to Arizona Foothills Magazine.
One of the posts on X claiming Erika's connection links back to a December 2001 article from Israeli newspaper Haaretz, which reported that Romanian authorities were looking into possible links between Israeli adoption agencies and an illegal global conspiracy to sell organs for transplants. However, it doesn't appear to be related to Erika or Romanian Angels because she hadn't launched the group until 2006.
The same post on X includes a screenshot of a 2023 article from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which highlights Romanian adults who claimed to have been trafficked as children. However, there is again no mention of Erika or Romanian Angels.
There is no evidence that Erika is banned from Romania, or that she was involved in child trafficking. While Everyday Heroes Like You appears to be in good standing with the IRS, the official Instagram account has not posted since July 2017.
She has been posting photos from her trips to Romania since 2012, when she shared on Instagram that it's "never 'goodbye'...just 'see you later.' "
Erika returned in April 2013, sharing a photo with a child and writing that she “left a piece” of herself “with each of these Romanian orphans. I can’t wait to see them again.”
By March 2014, she shared a video from another one of her visits with the Romanian Angels Project, captioned, “…These are my angels. Antonio Placement Center * Constanța, Romania.”
The Romanian Angels Project is an events-based charity that supported an orphanage in Constanta, as Erika told Arizona Foothills Magazine.
She said she felt “blessed” that the organization could go international on a continual basis through Antonio Placement Center in Constanta.
Arizona Foothills Magazine previously shared that the Romanian Angels program was doing a holiday initiative in which they could “‘adopt’ an incredible Romanian orphan.” In doing so, participants would commit to donating holiday presents for the adopted child in an effort to “make an impact” on their life. There is no evidence that this is anything other than a philanthropic initiative.
In May 2014, Erika posted an Instagram photo of hand-written Thank You cards that she shared were written by “75 of my little Romanian orphans” to those who sponsored them over the holiday season.
Erika has not directly addressed any of the online speculation that she is banned from Romania. However, she has addressed and debunked several other online claims made about her, including one that she and Turning Point USA were complicit in Charlie's death, per KSL.
"My silence does not mean that somehow Turning Point USA and all of the handpicked staff that loved my husband and my husband loved them, is somehow in on it," she said during a Dec. 10 appearance on Fox News's Outnumbered.
Erika continued, "But here's my breaking point on that. Come after me. Call me names. I don't care. Call me what you want, go down that rabbit hole, whatever. But when you go after my family, my Turning Point USA family, my Charlie Kirk Show family, when you go after the people that I love, and you're making hundreds and thousands of dollars every single episode going after the people that I love, because somehow they're in on this. No. ... This is not okay."
Erika went on to say that her past silence should not be interpreted as anything other than her business in seeking justice for her late husband, managing Turning Point USA and processing the grief -- and called the conspiracy theories a "mind virus."