The recently ousted president-elect of the prestigious Oxford Union has publicly admitted he "celebrated" the deadly shooting of American conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, acknowledging he sought to "get a laugh" from his inflammatory remarks.
Controversial Messages Spark Fury
George Abaraonye, a 20-year-old PPE student at University College, Oxford, triggered widespread outrage when he appeared to applaud the September shooting of Mr Kirk, which US authorities have classified as a political assassination.
The undergraduate posted "Charlie Kirk got shot, let's f****** go" in a WhatsApp group for Union members and shared similar sentiments on Instagram, just months after facing Kirk during a heated Oxford Union debate where the American represented prominent pro-Trump viewpoints.
Although Abaraonye later deleted the messages and claimed he was unaware the influencer had died when posting, he has now confessed his true motivations behind the controversial posts.
Student Admits Seeking Reactions
In a revealing interview with LBC, Abaraonye characterised his actions as "a stupid and silly thing to say" while attempting to explain his reasoning.
"I reacted to a notification and a headline," he stated. "I had no real context of what had happened. I didn't really understand the severity of what had happened."
When pressed about why he celebrated the shooting, Abaraonye shifted blame toward online discourse patterns, suggesting his reaction was "a symptom of how we have discourse online" which he described as often "very reactive" and "inflammatory."
The student explicitly admitted he wanted to "spark a conversation" about the significant event and acknowledged: "I wanted to get a reaction to have a conversation. Exactly, almost a laugh and a reaction and I realized after that that wasn't the right way to go about it."
Fallout and Institutional Response
The controversy culminated last month when more than 1,000 Union members voted to remove Abaraonye from his position as head of the historic 200-year-old debating society, which operates independently from Oxford University management.
Abaraonye contested the vote's legitimacy, claiming insecure handling of proxy votes had "compromised" the process - an allegation the Oxford Union firmly denies. The Union's disciplinary committee subsequently reviewed the matter and declared itself "not satisfied" that the vote was "unsafe," rejecting calls for a re-count or re-poll.
In a peculiar procedural twist, Abaraonye retains the ability to appeal the decision once more and will remain in post until determining his next course of action.
The student revealed he has faced threats of violence following the incident and reported being targeted by AI-generated videos attacking him personally. His college has implemented support measures after what he described as a breakdown.
Abaraonye, who identifies as coming from a working-class background and grew up on free school meals, expressed concern that the backlash could deter other black students from participating in Oxford life, emphasising the continued importance of representation within elite institutions.
Reflecting on his earlier debate with Kirk, Abaraonye previously told Times Radio that while he believed some of Kirk's rhetoric perpetuated "harmful stereotypes towards black people," this made engaging him in open forums even more crucial. He clarified: "I disagreed with him. I thought his views were harmful. But he did not deserve to die. No one deserves to be a victim of political violence because of the opinions they hold."
Lord Biggar, a Tory peer and Emeritus Professor of Theology at Oxford, condemned Abaraonye's original post as displaying "a horrifically casual attitude to political violence" entirely incompatible with a liberal institution like the Oxford Union. He added that Abaraonye's subsequent efforts to retain his position "only underscores his ill fitness for the presidency."
