Brilyn Hollyhand: The teenager hailed as Charlie Kirk’s heir apparent
If he was nervous, 11-year-old Brilyn Hollyhand did not show it, confidently welcoming Charlie Kirk to an interview on his YouTube channel with a subscriber count of just seven.
“You’re much further ahead of the curve than I was,” Kirk joked in seeming disbelief at the maturity of his young interviewer back in 2017. “So you’re way ahead of the game”.
Now aged 19, Mr Hollyhand is being touted as Kirk’s heir apparent after the 31-year-old Maga podcaster was shot and killed by a single bullet during an appearance at Utah Valley University last week.
Mr Hollyhand has travelled the length of the country speaking at universities across the US in a Kirk-like fashion, promoting conservative values on campus and rallying the youth to vote.
Since his first interview with his mentor seven years ago, the college student has become one of the most followed young conservative influencers of his generation, amassing around half-a-million followers across his social media platforms.
“There’s a lot of people that you interview that you never speak to again, but Charlie and I stayed friends, he’s been my mentor. I talked to him up until the morning of his passing,” Mr Hollyhand told The Telegraph.
“He was that person who cheered me on and I could go to for advice, and we were just there for each other.”
In the hours after Kirk’s murder, grass-roots Republicans began to ask who, if anyone, could replace the void left in the conservative media bubble.
The right person will need to echo Kirk’s slick communication skills and understanding of Generation Z, something Mr Hollyhand grasped from a young age.
Credit: YouTube/Brilyn Hollyhand
In fifth grade, he founded The Truth Gazette, a conservative political website, and began hosting a podcast a year later.
In January 2023, alongside CJ Pearson, another rising conservative activist, he was appointed co-chair of the Republican National Committee’s newly created Youth Advisory Council.
One year later, at the age of just 18, he published his first book drawn from his interviews with conservative political figures such as Kirk.
“Everybody’s talking about, who’s the next Charlie Kirk? Who can replace Charlie Kirk? There is no replacement for Charlie Kirk, there’s nobody that can fill his shoes,” Mr Hollyhand added, fresh off a talk in South Carolina.
“I got reminded in that moment of one of the last times I was on a campus with Charlie. He did a Q&A and somebody said, ‘Charlie, who is going to take the baton, who is next?’
“Charlie looked into the audience and said, ‘You’re the next Charlie Kirk, and you are, and you.’
“I did the same thing to the students in South Carolina, and I said, every single one of you is Charlie Kirk.”
Kirk gave Hollyhand advice and cheered him on
Mr Hollyhand said he has faced a wave of death threats since Kirk’s assassination. They have become so serious that he is escorted to classes at Auburn University, Alabama, where he now attends college, by a security detail.
“We have to be louder for Charlie and no, that doesn’t mean not being safe. I’ll be travelling with a security detail, unfortunately,” he said.
“There’s a detail that has to walk with me to my classes every day because of the death threats that I’ve gotten just in the last week. That’s the world that we woke up in on Wednesday.”
Like Kirk, Mr Hollyhand remains steadfast in his belief that civil discourse is the answer to the toxicity in US politics.
“We can’t let America die just because civil discourse is done. We have to bring back civil discourse and the perfect place to do that is on campuses.
“That’s why my tour is called one conversation at a time. I think the problem, and the reason that I’m getting threats and the reason Charlie was assassinated, is because people don’t know how to talk to each other.”
Long gone is the squeaky-voiced fourth grader with glasses too big for his face interviewing his political hero.
Even at his tender age, Mr Hollyhand is now a seasoned speaker and pundit who will help carry the baton left behind by Kirk, no longer asking questions about Kirk’s legacy but helping to define it.
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