‘Hawk Tuah’ girl Haliey Welch says memecoin implosion ‘traumatized’ her

Welch said the fallout from the HAWK memecoin left her wary of crypto, adding she still does not fully understand the sector more than a year later.

Haliey Welch, the social media influencer, popularly known as the “Hawk Tuah girl,” said that the implosion of the “HAWK” memecoin, which she promoted in 2024, and the ensuing social backlash “traumatized” her.

“I got talked into doing something that I didn't know anything about, really, but you've got to be really careful what you put your name on,” Welch told Andrew Callaghan of the Channel 5 YouTube channel on Friday.

Welch said she fully cooperated with a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) probe in 2025, which cleared her of any wrongdoing, and that she did not possess any of the funds from the memecoin launch, nor did she have the technical expertise to launch the coin.

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