Charlie Kirk’s suspected assassin bragged about his Wordle score just before pulling the trigger, online messages reveal
Charlie Kirk’s suspected assassin, Tyler Robinson, bragged about his Wordle score to a friend less than an hour before he allegedly pulled the trigger, online messages have revealed.
The 22-year-old Utah man has been charged with aggravated murder after the Turning Point founder and MAGA influencer was fatally shot in the neck on September 10 at an event on the Utah Valley University campus in Orem.
More than 20 former friends, classmates, and colleagues of Robinson, including those who only knew him online, have shared messages and interactions with The Washington Post that provide a glimpse into his life and beliefs.
They described him as an avid gamer who was interested in politics but with no partisan biases, and someone who “didn’t like hateful people” or “bullies,” while at school, he was a “funny but awkward” straight-A student.
So much of Robinson’s life played out online, according to the profile by the Post, that while en route to the campus in Orem, he was chatting with a friend on a chatroom about how that day’s Wordle puzzle had taken him three attempts to solve.
At 11:28 a.m. on the morning of September 10, when Robinson had driven to the university, he texted his Wordle score to his friend, according to the messages seen by the newspaper. At 11:51 a.m. Robinson allegedly walked onto the college campus and headed to the roof of the building where students had gathered to hear Kirk speak.
At 12:23 p.m., 55 minutes after Robinson sent the message about the online puzzle, he allegedly fired a single shot and Kirk slumped backward in his chair— a moment that was captured on video and quickly spread across social media.
The timing of the messages showed “a striking example of the compartmentalization” Robinson displayed in the minutes, hours, and days before the shooting, the Post noted.
Robinson followed up with his Wordle friend 80 minutes after Kirk was shot and sent a message on the Discord messaging platform.
“You seen this news?????” he said, according to the messages seen by the Post. “he’s reported dead and the footage looks BAD.”
Friends told the outlet that even in the years leading up to Robinson’s alleged killing of Kirk, he gave away no signs that suggested he was capable of committing such violence.
According to the messages reviewed by the Post, most of the discussion dating back to January 2020 consisted mostly of “chitchat, memes and crude jokes.”
Robinson, who grew up in the conservative southern Utah city of Washington, was described by one friend as a gaming “savant” and spent thousands of hours playing some of his favorite games. The newspaper found no evidence that Robinson mentioned Kirk in the chats, though Discord users can delete their own messages and not all of them were preserved.
During the 2020 presidential election, he told a fellow student, Xander Luke, that both the Republican and Democratic parties had “failed” people.
“He didn’t think either of the options were good,” Luke said of the choice of Donald Trump or Joe Biden.
In high school, a former friend named Erik Wagner described Robinson as somewhat of a recluse. “He came off as funny but awkward, a person who made himself hard to know,” Wagner told the outlet, adding that the pair drifted during their junior year.
Later, in 2021 when he was training as an electrician at Dixie Technical College, former colleagues said Robinson mostly kept to himself. One recalled that he would often walk around with his hands clenched, and Robinson sat alone at lunch most days.
The former co-worker recalled one instance when Robinson broke with routine and joined in. “Once, when a co-worker brought his new pistol to show off, Robinson perked up and volunteered that he had once hit a 400-yard shot,” the Post reported.
In the years that followed, other friends noticed Robinson had an interest in guns. “He loved his guns, he loved his beer, he hated the government. That’s the impression that I got,” one friend who regularly played the card game Magic: The Gathering with Robinson in 2024 said.
Around that time, the friends noticed that Robinson started to grow close to one of his two roommates, who authorities said was biologically male and transitioning to female. They had reportedly entered into a romantic relationship.
“Robinson’s roommate increasingly complained about right-wing politicians, about anti-trans sentiment in Utah and about receiving funny looks from co-workers,”one of the friends reportedly told the Post.
Prosecutors shared messages allegedly between Robinson and the roommate, who has not been publicly identified, in the aftermath of the shooting.
“I had enough of his hatred,” Robinson allegedly said. “Some hate can’t be negotiated out.”
Robinson, who has not entered a plea, made his first in-person court appearance last week as his attorneys argued to limit media access in the case.
He arrived in court with restraints on his wrists and ankles and wearing a dress shirt, tie and slacks.
He smiled at family members sitting in the front row of the courtroom, where his mother teared up and wiped her eyes with a tissue.
