Candace Owens didn't soft‑launch this one.

Late one night, the right‑wing commentator opened X and fired off yet another broadside at the conservative women's influencer circuit. Buried in her familiar stew of Bible verses, barbs and innuendo was one line that snapped people to attention:

Erika Kirk's 'biggest donor,' Owens claimed, is a Scientologist.

No name. No receipts. No context beyond a sneer. Just six words tossed into the culture‑war meat grinder, and suddenly one of the US right's most prominent 'tradwife' figureheads was being painted as spiritually compromised by association.

For anyone who follows American conservatism even loosely, it was a strangely intimate kind of attack. Owens and Kirk, until very recently, inhabited the same ecosystem, appeared on the same stages, sold essentially the same fantasy: that you, too, can have God, marriage, nationalism and brand deals, all neatly aligned.

Now, Owens is hinting that behind the pious Instagram captions and Turning Point USA branding, Kirk's world is bankrolled by a follower of Scientology, the movement that many evangelicals consider not just wrong, but actively demonic.

Candace Owens Turns Scientology Into A Weapon

Owens' allegation arrived, as her controversies usually do, in the middle of an extended thread. For weeks she has been on a tear against what she calls 'Christian feminism' and 'grifters' in the conservative women's space, influencers she insists are selling 'biblical womanhood' while allegedly chasing fame, money or, unforgivably in her eyes, any whiff of autonomy.

Erika Kirk, who runs Turning Point USA's women's arm and bills herself as a Christian speaker and philanthropist, has been in Owens' crosshairs throughout. The X post at the centre of this row folds Kirk into a wider narrative about compromised ministries and false teachers. Then Owens casually twists the knife: 'Her biggest donor is a Scientologist.'

For an audience steeped in US evangelical culture, that line is radioactive. Scientology isn't just 'a different belief system'; it's a byword for spiritual danger.

To suggest that the head of a women's Christian initiative is financially reliant on a Scientologist is to imply, without ever quite stating, that her platform is corrupted at the root.

Owens provides no corroborating detail. She doesn't explain how she knows who Kirk's largest donor is, nor does she attempt to show that Scientology has in any way influenced Turning Point's programming or theology.

The claim functions purely as an insinuation, designed to let followers connect the dots she's sketched in the air.

And they do. Replies under her post rush to treat the line as confirmation of long‑held suspicions: that TPUSA's women's conferences felt a little too glossy, that the vibe was more 'self‑help' than scripture, that something about Kirk's brand seemed off. One throwaway accusation suddenly crystallises into 'proof.'

What makes this so telling is not that Owens is feuding, that's her default setting, but how religion is being deployed as a political cudgel. 'Scientologist' here is less a factual label than a slur, a shortcut to signal that someone is unclean.

Erika Kirk, 'Biggest Donors' And The Conservative Purity Test

There is also something quietly absurd in the way this is framed. Large donors are not an anomaly in US conservative politics; they are the engine. Turning Point USA, like every major advocacy group on the American right, survives on cheques from a fairly small circle of wealthy benefactors.

Without them, there are no lavish student conferences, no studio sets, no viral clips.

Owens knows this perfectly well. Her own rise began under the TPUSA umbrella, and her current media ventures do not run on fresh air and goodwill. Yet, in going after Kirk, she taps into a very old anxiety inside Christian conservative circles: the fear of infiltration, of 'wolves in sheep's clothing' bankrolled by sinister forces.

The allegation that Erika Kirk's 'biggest donor' follows Scientology plays directly into that narrative. It invites a specific picture: prayer‑brunch photo ops on the surface, something spiritually rotten underneath. It is less about financial transparency and more about staging a public exorcism.

The real story, though, is messier and less cinematic. We do not know who Kirk's largest donors are; TPUSA does not publish a line‑by‑line breakdown of its funders. We do know that big‑money donors of every religious stripe, Christian, secular, and everything in between, have long treated right‑wing non‑profits as vehicles for their broader cultural and political goals. That is hardly news.

What Owens is doing is not forensic scrutiny of that system. She is cherry‑picking one alleged donor's faith and using it to render an entire woman's ministry suspect. It's character assassination wrapped in the language of spiritual discernment.

The Cannibalism Of The American Right

Step back from the personalities and something more troubling comes into focus. The American right has always had factions, from libertarians to hardline theocrats. But the current wave of online conservatism, hyper‑digitised, influencer‑driven, swimming in grievance, has made intra‑movement cannibalism a spectator sport.

Candace Owens' attack on Erika Kirk's supposed Scientology‑linked donor isn't an isolated flare‑up; it's another round in a long, ugly game of 'who is pure enough to lead.' Today it's Scientology. Yesterday it was accusations of 'New Age' language or insufficient submission to husbands. Tomorrow it will be something else.

The consequences are not confined to two personal brands. When religious labels are thrown around this casually, the public's ability to distinguish between legitimate concerns and performative witch‑hunts erodes. Real questions about money in politics, transparency and the blurred lines between ministry and business get drowned out by gossip.

There's a bleak irony in watching self‑declared Christian advocates tear into one another using the same tactics they accuse the secular left of: vague allegations, guilt by association, and a total disinterest in evidence.

If Erika Kirk is, in fact, taking major funding from a Scientology member in a way that shapes her work, that deserves clear reporting and hard questions. Instead, we have a single, ambiguous line from a former ally who profits handsomely from conflict, and an audience that seems far more interested in the thrill of a takedown than the dull work of truth.

In that sense, Owens' Scientology jab says less about TPUSA's donors and more about the ecosystem that rewards this kind of whisper turned headline. The scandal isn't that one conservative influencer might have a non‑Christian benefactor.

It's that an entire movement is increasingly happy to eat its own, as long as somebody's livestream numbers go up.

Originally published on IBTimes UK

Tags
Candace Owens, Scientology