In September 2025, Gerald Bourguet felt he was finally living his dream life: he and his wife had bought a house with a pool, they had just welcomed a baby boy, and he was writing about professional men's basketball as his full-time job. But all of that changed after he made a series of online posts critical of the late conservative activist Charlie Kirk hours after he was fatally shot on 10 September, while speaking on the campus of Utah Valley University. In the posts, Bourguet described Kirk as an "evil man" and suggested he had dedicated his life to hateful causes.
He also criticised Kirk's supporters saying they had not been vocal about school shootings. "I had seen the way that people were talking about this person - kind of eulogising him and lionising him and it bothered me based on a lot of the things that he had said," Bourguet told the BBC. Kirk, who founded Christian youth organisation Turning Point USA, was a divisive figure in US politics.
For many on the political right, he was charismatic and had a unique skill in making conservative ideas appeal to young people. But for his opponents, his comments on a large swathe of issues from race to immigration, gun control and gender identity were deeply offensive. Screenshots of Bourguet's critical posts went viral quickly.
He was fired from his job, his address was exposed online, and he began receiving threatening text messages, he said. Concerned for their safety, the family fled the state with their four-month-old. They returned months later to sell the house and permanently relocated.
A year later, he says he doesn't regret what he said, but acknowledged: "My life will never be the same after this". "At age 35, I am having to start over in a lot of respects… I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy," Bourguet said from his new location, which the BBC agreed to not disclose. PHNX Sports, Bourguet's former employer, did not respond to the BBC's request for comment.
Bourguet was one of hundreds fired or disciplined over critical comments of Kirk after his death. While some of those who have lost their jobs have been reinstated or received restitution - sometimes in the millions - others like Bourguet have had to rebuild from scratch. In the aftermath of Kirk's assassination, most people kept their feelings to themselves, or shared them with close friends.
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