A teen MAGA speaker dubbed the “new Charlie Kirk” has been caught in a sting asking for thousands to speak to students.
Brilyn Hollyhand, 19, has presented himself as an heir to the murdered Turning Point USA founder, barnstorming colleges to speak to conservative students on a tour which began on a private jet.
But the Daily Mail on Thursday caught his agent asking for thousands of dollars plus expenses to speak at a fake college event.
The outlet posed as a college student trying to book Hollyhand and emailed Premiere Speakers Bureau, which connects speakers and organizations.
A representative for the agency wrote back, “Brilyn’s fee is $7,500 plus coach class airfare and expenses for (2) two. Is this within budget?”
When the Daily Mail asked Hollyhand for comment on the fee, he denied receiving payments for speaking on campus, which he echoed in a statement to the Daily Beast, saying that he doesn’t charge for travel or to speak at “campus stops,” but does seek fees for “large conferences,” which can be hosted at a university.
“For large conferences, I, like every other conference participant who’s invited to speak, get reimbursed for the basic costs of getting there which is absolutely standard,” he wrote. “But for campus stops, I cover all costs myself and get there on my own, which still seems to upset the haters. 😂”
That statement differed, however, from what his booking agent had emailed the Daily Mail as an “amendment,” saying, “For campus events Brilyn is happy to work with whatever budget is available to bring in a speaker,” suggesting that he would accept payment.
After the Mail published its story, another young MAGA leader, William Branson Donahue, posted an invoice from February which showed Hollyhand had been paid $2191.91 for “travel, lodging and meals,” for an event at State College, PA, for Penn State College Republicans, saying that made Hollyhand’s denial he take cash to speak “a lie.”
A source close to Hollyhand said the event had been an example of the “large conferences” he charges to go to and sent the Beast an itemized bill which showed the total he had charged covered “airfare and meals” for himself and his father Brian.
Hollyhand began his rise inside the youth MAGA world aged 11 when he interviewed Kirk, and then became a minor right-wing celebrity in his own right. He now calls himself “the internet’s youngest voice of reason,” enthusiastically posting MAGA content to more than 200,000 followers on X.
Late last month he began his own 10-stop college tour, echoing Kirk’s “prove me wrong” tent revival-style tours of the nation’s universities called “One Conversation at a Time.” But the 19-year-old, the scion of a wealthy Alabama family which made its fortune developing and building affordable housing, raised eyebrows even in MAGA by posting about the tour from on board a private plane.
Nick Sortor, a friend of Kirk’s and a former co-host of the late man’s radio show, called Hollyhand a “grifter” in reaction to the private plane video.
The backlash prompted Tyler Bowyer, Turning Point’s head of operations, clarified his “distasteful” tour was not endorsed by the organization.
The MAGA boy wonder, a student at Auburn University in Alabama, claimed that the private jet does not belong to him. “A hometown friend offered to help get me there because I couldn’t afford it,” he wrote.
