After a woman revealed that Republican senatorial candidate Herschel Walker had urged her to have an abortion, Walker adamantly denied the story and claimed he had no idea who this woman could be.
But thereâs a good reason the woman finds that defense highly doubtful: Sheâs the mother of one of his children.
When the woman first told The Daily Beast her story, we agreed not to reveal certain details about her identity over her concerns for safety and privacy. But then Walker categorically denied the story and said he didnât know who was making this allegation.
On Wednesday morning, Fox News host Brian Kilmeade asked Walker whether he had figured out the womanâs identity, based on details in the original report.
âNot at all,â Walker replied. âAnd thatâs what I hope everyone can see. Itâs sort of like everyone is anonymous, or everyone is leaking, and they want you to confess to something you have no clue about.â
Walker then spun the report as an attack from âdesperateâ Democrats eager to maintain control of the pivotal Senate seat. Instead of being deterred by his now-public hypocrisy, he said he now feels âenergized.â
âThey see me as a big threat, and I know that and I knew it when I got into this race. But they donât realize that I think they came for the wrong one. They energized me,â Walker said. âThey energized me, because I know how they really want to try to keep this seat.â
The anonymous woman said that defense sounded ridiculous.
âSure, I was stunned, but I guess it also doesnât shock me, that maybe there are just so many of us that he truly doesnât remember,â she said. âBut then again, if he really forgot about it, that says something, too.â
The woman, a registered Democrat whose years-long relationship with Walker continued after the abortion, told The Daily Beast that her chief concern with revealing her name was because she is the mother of one of Walkerâs own children and she wanted to protect her familyâs privacy as best she could while also coming forward with the truth. (Walker has publicly acknowledged the child as his own, and the woman proved she is the childâs mother and provided credible evidence of a long-term relationship with Walker.)
The Walker campaign declined to comment for this story.
But even with the woman remaining anonymous, the story has still rocked Walkerâs family in other ways.
After Walker denied the report, one of his three sons, conservative social media influencer Christian Walker, released a series of angry statements and videos condemning his dad as a liar, and alleging that the University of Georgia football hero had threatened to murder him and his motherâWalkerâs ex-wife.
âI know my mom and I would really appreciate if my father Herschel Walker stopped lying and making a mockery of us,â Christian Walker tweeted after the abortion story broke Monday night. âYouâre not a âfamily manâ when you left us to bang a bunch of women, threatened to kill us, and had us move over 6 times in 6 months running from your violence.â
The anonymous woman said that while sheâs been a âgood sportâ about the campaign, after Walkerâs denial, she could no longer keep this information from the public.
âIâve been very civil thus far. I keep my mouth shut. I donât cause any trouble. I stay in the background. But Iâm also not gonna get run over time and time again,â she said. âThatâs crazy.â
Walker and his campaign have put out seemingly conflicting messages to battle the story, denying it on one hand as a âlieâ while also appealing to themes of religious redemption and forgiveness on the other. On Wednesday, Walker put out a new ad where he discusses overcoming his struggles with mental health âby the grace of God.â
But if Walker is seeking redemption for the abortion, that would be a recent shift. He lied about his role in abortions just this yearâonce in a June interview with The Daily Beast, and later to a Democratic activist posing as a Walker supporter, who caught his denials on video.

Asked about the role faith played in Walkerâs life, the anonymous woman, who identifies as a Christian herself, said even though Walker often talked about Christianity, he uses it âwhen it works for him.â
She said Walker frequently talked about being a Christian, but never once expressed any misgivings about abortion generallyâor any regret about the one that they had. When she got pregnant again years later, the woman says she made a different choice, even though Walker said it still wasnât âa convenient timeâ for him.
âHe didnât express any regret. He said, ârelax and recover,ââ the woman recalled, alluding to the message on the âget wellâ card Walker sent her along with the abortion payment.
âHe seemed pretty pro-choice to me. He was pro-choice, obviously,â she said.
âI donât think thereâs anywhere in the Bible where it says âHave four kids with four different women while youâre with another woman.â Or where it praises not being a present parent. Or that an abortion is an OK thing to do when itâs not the right time for you, but a terrible thing for anyone else to do when you are running for Senate. He picks and chooses where itâs convenient for him to use that religious crutch,â she said.
The campaign has used the womanâs desire to remain anonymous to raise money, saying in its first fundraising email after the news broke that âNow, theyâre using an anonymous source to further slander me.â
Asked how she felt about the campaignâs boast that Walker saw record-setting contributions in the hours after he called her a liar, the woman said she hoped they would give the money away.
âIt would be really nice if when he loses they would turn that money over to someone who needs it,â she said. âMaybe to a mental health organization. It would be really nice of them, instead of taking that and putting it in some other politicianâs pockets, they used it to help someone else.â
Walker finds his campaign in crisis as election day is a month away. The outcome of the race could tip the balance of the Senate, and polls are tight. Recent surveys taken before the abortion news broke show Walker narrowly trailing his Democratic opponent, Sen. Raphael Warnock.
But the womanâs allegation has reframed the race and sent Republicans scrambling.
According to The Daily Beastâs reporting, after Walker and the woman first conceived a child in 2009, he urged her to have an abortion and then reimbursed her for it. The woman provided a receipt from the clinic showing the date of the procedure, along with a signed personal check Walker had mailed her inside a âget wellâ card five days later.
But many Republican backers and media personalitiesâincluding Walker himselfâhave seized on the womanâs anonymity to dismiss the report. On Tuesday, former National Rifle Association spokesperson Dana Loesch called her âone broadâ and a âskank.â
On the whole, however, the story has clearly had traction.
âItâs good to see my story has been so well received,â the woman said, âbecause Iâm telling the truth. Iâm not trying to glorify abortionâthatâs a very personal choice that everyone has to make for themselvesâbut I have no shame in it. It is what it is. Itâs part of my story, and what makes me who I am today.â
The woman continued that she hopes her story makes other people feel less alone, âto maybe find comfort and a sense of dignity.â
âYouâre not a monster, not a murderer,â she continued. âThese are real life decisions that can completely change your life. Making it so black-and-white makes it easy for these old men to say itâs wrong or itâs right, but theyâve never been put in a position where itâs done to their body.â
She said it was wrong, however, for Walker to use abortion when it suited him personally and try to deny others the procedure when it suits him politically.
âHe didnât accept responsibility for the kid we did have together, and now he isnât accepting responsibility for the one that we didnât have. That says so much about how he views the role of women in childbirth, versus his own. And now he wants to take that choice away from other women and couples entirely,â she said.
âThis was a decision I had to makeâtwiceâabout my future and a potential childâs future, and I was able to make it, both times. And Herschel was also able to have a say. The fact he now thinks itâs OK to just take that away,â she said, âI just canât understand.â