A witness to Charlie Kirk’s assassination sued podcaster Candace Owens on Monday for suggesting he was involved in the Utah killing.
Washington State native Robert Hild became “a target for verbal attack” and death threats by Owens’s followers over her conspiracy theories about the Turning Point USA founder’s September 2025 death, his lawyers said in a 73-page federal complaint. Owens is also facing an April defamation suit from the head of Kirk’s private security over similar claims on Owens’s popular podcast, Candace.
The right-wing media figure “told her audience of millions in multiple podcast episodes that Hild — a private citizen in the crowd at the event where Kirk was assassinated — contributed to Kirk’s assassination, had ties to malicious foreign actors, and was connected to a ‘gothic’ and ‘communist’ ‘underground,’ which she associated with the murder, among other abject and damaging falsehoods,” the new lawsuit said.
“Owens neither cares about the truth nor the harmful effects her lies have on her targets,” Hild’s attorneys wrote. “Whether her lies involve the powerful and famous (like the First Lady of France, whom Owens has repeatedly accused of being a man, leading to a defamation lawsuit in Delaware) or regular, everyday citizens like Hild, Owens’ sole concern is the clicks, likes, and reposts that pad her wallet.”
Owens did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
Hild’s team described him as a former data scientist and Mormon missionary, living a mostly private life, until he went with friends to watch Kirk speak. He fled and took shelter off campus for several hours after Kirk was shot, the lawsuit said. The media frenzy started after Hild took a walk with a friend days later to process the tragedy, passing by a Utah Valley University stairwell where suspected assassin Tyler Robinson was seen walking.
The friend posted photos of them on social media from the scene without Hild’s consent, according to the lawsuit. The images became fodder for Owens to suggest on her podcast that Hild resembled the FBI’s photos of the suspect and might be Kirk’s real killer. Owens started this narrative with a Sept. 29, 2025, episode titled, “They are Lying About Tyler Robinson,” the lawsuit said.
Owens posted multiple podcasts lumping in Hild and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as part of the same possible conspiracy against Kirk, attorneys wrote. Threats, stalking, doxxing, vandalism, and “severe emotional distress” followed for Hild, the complaint alleged.
The podcaster’s theories have also implicated Brian Harpole, the private security leader who was assigned to Kirk and oversaw parts of the botched security preparations for his UVU event. Kirk’s family said last week that it plans to sue the school for failing to prevent the shooting.
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“Despite mountains of evidence pointing toward suspected assassin Tyler Robinson’s guilt, Owens regularly peddles wildly speculative alternate theories, including claims that foreign actors (such as Ukraine, France and Israel), the United States military, the State of Utah, Utah Valley University, Kirk’s former head of security (currently suing Owens for defamation in Tennessee), and even Kirk’s widow Erika participated in Kirk’s murder,” Hild’s complaint said.
Owens defended herself against Harpole’s federal lawsuit in an August motion, arguing that her commentary is legally protected opinion, “rhetorical hyperbole,” or just asking “questions.”