‘Hawk Tuah' girl Haliey Welch ‘didn't know' how crypto worked before meme coin disaster, received death threats after
Haliey 'Hawk Tuah' Welch claims she had no idea what cryptocurrency was or how it worked before her disastrous meme coin launch.
The viral sensation abruptly stopped her podcast and went to ground in December 2024 after the digital coin she backed, $HAWK, briefly soared then crashed.
'I couldn't tell you how crypto worked the day that coin launched,' she said on her podcast Talking Tuah, speaking for the first time about the scandal.
'I had no idea. I don't know. So that screwed me,' she added.
The coin reached a market capitalization of $500 million before becoming worthless in a matter of hours, losing money for almost everyone who invested in it. The launch then became subject to investigations by the FBI and Securities and Exchange Commission, during which time Welch's legal team told her to stop broadcasting.
7 The Hawk Tuah Girl cryptocurrency, known as $HAWK, rose and fell at lightning speed.
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7 Haliey 'Hawk Tuah Girl' Welch enjoyed celebrity status, showing up at events such as the weigh-ins of Mike Tyson and Jake Paul.
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Welch — who initially went viral last year after she used the term 'hawk tuah' to describe a sex act in an 'on the street' interview outside a nightclub — was cleared of any wrongdoing in relation to the meme coin and says she didn't receive any profits from it.
'I got paid a marketing fee,' she said. 'That's all I made. I did not make a dime from the coin itself.'
She also told followers she feels bad for anyone who got scammed.
'It makes me feel really bad that they trusted me, and I led them to something that I did not have enough knowledge about. I did not have enough knowledge about crypto to be getting involved with it. And I knew that, but I got talked into it, and I trusted the wrong people.'
Welch, 22, said she wasn't allowed to disclose the name of the person who allegedly hoodwinked her into putting her name to the failed coin.
However, a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of investors in the coin in New York named Clinton So as the person who launched the coin and social media influencer Alex Larson Schultz as promoting it online. Both are defendants in the case, which is ongoing.
7 Haliey Welch says that she did not understand cryptocurrency, even though a coin was launched with her name on it.
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7 The value of $HAWK rose quickly and plummeted after so-called snipers his their sell buttons.
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A spokesperson for a company associated with the defendants told Bloomberg news they are 'confident that we have done nothing wrong.'
Welch said she spent all the money she was paid to promote the coin to deal with the situation.
'I paid for PR crisis, a new lawyer, stuff like that … Every bit of it went to that. So I've really come out with nothing. All that trouble for nothing.'
She also talked about how after the coin's drop she received a barrage of abuse both online and in person, explaining who she felt like she was 'going to get shot,' on a trip to an airport, and how she received a message from a guy who threatened to 'chop me up and feed me to his dog.'
7 Following the launch of $HAWK, Haliey Welch's granny had FBI agents at her door.
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7 Soon after the rapid rise and fall of $HAWK Haliey Welch feared that people wanted her dead.
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7 Despite all the tumult, Welch netted no money from the crypto she inspired and was not named in the lawsuit.
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The FBI also came to Welch's grandmother's house.
'After the coin launch, the feds came to Granny's house and knocked on her door,' remembered Welch.
'She called me, having a heart attack, and said, 'The FBI is here after you. What have you done?''
Agents insisted she wasn't in trouble, but, Walsh said, 'They wanted to see my phone' and scheduled for her to be interviewed in Nashville.
Once there, 'They interrogated me, asking me questions and everything else related to crypto, all the people on my phone that I've talked to about crypto. They went through my phone. So they cleared me. And then the SEC picked it up … they wanted my phone.'
Welch says she 'gave them everything' they wanted and is now in the clear.
'It was definitely scary, but at the end of the day … I was cleared and wasn't named in the lawsuit. Legally, I wasn't in any trouble.'
'But,' she added, 'it was a big mess.'
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