Haliey Welch, a.k.a. Hawk Tuah, Tries to Explain Herself
This time last May, Haliey Welch was working at a spring factory in her native Tennessee. Twelve months laterâŠwell, are you familiar with the phrase âhawk tuahâ?
Welch went viral last summer after using that colorful turn of phrase to describe how best to please a male lover. âIt happened very fast,â she says over Zoom from her home âin the sticksâ of Tennessee. Welchâs camera may be off, but her voiceâthat deep Southern twang coupled with a perkiness befitting an anthropomorphized cartoon chipmunkâis unmistakable. âI donât really consider myself a celebrity. When I go out to grocery stores and stuff, and people are staring at me, Iâm like, What are they looking at? Then Iâm like, WaitâŠoh yeah. I donât know. It donât feel real to me.â
Thatâs surprising to hear from Welchâsince unlike many flash in the pan internet presences, sheâs managed to sustain her viral fame. Welch has sold thousands of dollars of merchandise, amassed millions of followers on social media, and started a hit podcast called, what else, Talk Tuah.
But her notoriety has also come with consequences. At the end of 2024, Welch began hawking (get it?!) a meme coin, $HAWK, which she and her partners at OverHere claimed would âredefine the crypto space.â But within 20 minutes of launching, $HAWK lost more than 90% of its valueâfalling from a peak of $490 million to $60 million. Soon, Welch and her partners were being accused of participating in a ârug-pull scheme,â with detractors claiming that they quickly, and intentionally, inflated the value of $HAWK, then sold off their coinsâcausing $HAWKâs value to crash and allegedly leaving many regular people holding the bag. âI am a huge fan of Hawk Tuah but you took my life savings,â wrote one X user.
âI hate that thatâs even a thing,â Welch says now of the crypto mess. âHalf of those people that done it were, like, my fans. They trusted me, like, guiding them to it. And I donât knowâŠit really hurt my feelings when it turned out the way it did. I wish it hadnât have happened.â
In the immediate fallout, Welchâs team maintained that there had been no âpump and dumpâ scam. âTeam hasnât sold one token,â Welch wrote on her personal X account on December 4, though the post has since been deleted. Nevertheless, crypto influencers like journalist Stephen Findeisen, better known as Coffeezilla, ripped Welch a new one for the alleged scam, and several investors in $HAWK filed a complaint with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. On March 31, the SEC closed an investigation into Welch, finding âno evidenceâ against the influencer.
Her initial response to the drama was to disappear. On December 4, Welch ended an X livestream with the famous last words, âAnyhoo, Iâm gonna go bedâ; just like that, her podcast and social media channels went dark for about three months. Where was she? At home in Tennessee, being âa 24/7 dog mom,â she says. âIt was nice.â Welch also had human companionship: her boyfriend, Kelby Blackwell, whom podcast listeners may know as Pookie.
But a celebrity can only be a dog mom and girlfriend for so long. On March 25, Welch returned to social media and started her podcast again. Her dream guests? Britney Spears and Miley Cyrus. âThose are just the women Iâve always looked up to,â she says. âI hate how Britney turned out because of the things she was put through. But her book that she came out with, it explains a good bit of it, why sheâs the way she is now. I donât know. Sheâs inspiring.â
Given her roller-coaster year, the exceedingly polite Welch can probably relate a bit more to Spearsâs saga now. âI see things a lot differently than I used to,â she says. âMy eyes are open a lot wider.â
Below, Welch chats with Vanity Fair about taking a much-needed mental health break, her acting aspirations, and how she learned to embrace being Hawk Tuah.
Vanity Fair: You recently took an extended break from public life. How does it feel now to be back in the spotlight?
Haliey Welch: Um, itâs definitely been a little bit of a struggle, but I feel like rebuilding is what I needed to do. And itâs my perfect chance to rebuild now, so thatâs really what Iâm working on.
Some of the comments you get on Instagram are so mean. Do you read comments? How do you handle them?
I do my best not to read âem, but sometimes you just canât help yourself. Everybodyâs entitled to an opinion, obviously, but I donât know. I try not to let it get me down.
Obviously, there was the meme coin incident. Of course, itâs a complicated issue.
Of course.
I can barely understand it myself. Crypto is so confusing.
Yeah, I donât really understand it much myself either [laughs]. I donât know. It was one of those things that just happened, and I feel sorry for everybody that just lost moneyâŠ. I donât know. Iâve learned from that. You got to be really careful what you tie your name to, and you definitely need to know what youâre getting yourself into when you agree to do it. Thatâs something I definitely should have done beforehand. I donât know. Itâs a crazy world we live in.
What have you learned from that experience? Do you have anything to say to the people who lost their money?
I would say, personally, what I learned from itâŠletâs seeâŠI donât know. I just feel really bad for anybody that lost money. All my comments, if you read those, people are like, âOh, well, I lost a lot of money in this. Now my kids have to go without stuff.â I donât know. It makes me feel, like, really sorry for it.
After the crypto scandal, you went off the grid. What were you doing for those three months? Where were you?
Oh, I hate to say this, but it was a much-needed mental healthâjustâŠwhat do you call it? A mental health break, I guess, is what you can call it.
I would see my friends. I would go out and eat. Thatâs really about it. I donât ever get out and do much when Iâm home. I like being by myself.
How badly did the scandal affect your mental health?
I would say it probably didnât get as bad as it did when the videoâlike, my interview on Broadway [in Nashville]âgot leaked, but it was almost the same. I donât know. Itâs really overwhelming. Your whole lifeâs basically online, and then people can say anything they want to you. And then you got to sit there with the thought, Oh, a lot of people just lost money because of something you did, like, [something] you led them to. You got to be really strong to be in this kind of space, I feel like.
Can you talk a little bit about that roller coaster: the âhawk tuahâ video being so terrible for your mental health, but also creating all these amazing opportunities?
Yeah. It took me a while to finally see that too. Iâve always been a person that just kind of kept to myself. I would go to work, Iâd hang out with my friends, and Iâd just stay out of everybodyâs way. I wasnât really on social media much besides Snapchat.
But everything changed after that interview. Iâve always been one to struggle with mental health, and Iâm still struggling with it a little bit. But itâs been likeâŠI just kept getting kicked when I was down. Itâs something I never in a million years wouldâve expected. But then I was like, Okay, everybody else is making money off of it, and theyâre not even the ones that got interviewed, you know? So I wanted to do something about it. And the first thing I did, I went and found an attorney, and then he led me to my team that Iâm with now. [As of December 2024, Welch had in fact been represented by Los Angelesâbased PR firm the Agency Group. On April 1, that firm confirmed to Vanity Fair that it was no longer representing Welch. Sheâs now with Penthouse Management.]
You recently parted ways with Jake Paul and his production company, Betr. How did you make that decision?
It was kind of a mutual thing to go our separate ways, but weâre not on any bad terms. Theyâre great people and theyâve done a lot for me. Jake Paul, heâs good as gold. He was the one to give me the opportunity.
How do you feel about being known as the âhawk tuahâ girl? Are you tired of that?
Honestly, at first I was like, I need to move away from that because that one moment shouldnât define me. But that moment made me, so itâs part of myâŠI donât want to say part of my brand, but itâs definitely part of me, and itâs something I will never escape from. So Iâve kind of just embraced it.
I would love to know what you have to say about the incident in early February when a canceled episode of Talk Tuah about the crypto scandal briefly appeared online, then was removed from the internet. YouTuber FaZe Banks was on the show, and heâs accused your team of âleakingâ the canceled Talk Tuah episode to further manipulate the markets. Do you have anything to say about that?
Amy Sisoyev [Welchâs publicist]: Oh, we canât speak on that. Iâm sorry.
You went viral in the lead-up to the presidential election. A lot of people were projecting their politics onto you and making assumptions about your own political beliefs. You became sort of a political figure by accident. What was that like?
[Long pause] Yeah, I donât know if I consider myself a political figure. I try not to get into politics too much. I donât know. Itâs too much beyond me to understand.
It was kind of a breath of fresh air, because everybody stopped fighting about who theyâre voting for. And I don’t knowâit kind of just made everybody laugh in the middle of it.
You could have done anything you wanted after becoming a celebrity overnight. You could have made a reality show, you could have gone on TV, you could have done anything. Why did you decide to go the podcasting route?
I really liked the podcast route because it was a way for me and Chelsea [Bradford] to do something together. And itâs not scripted. We can say whatever we want on there. We can express ourselves. We can get guests on there, and then theyâre entitled to say whatever theyâd like to on there. I donât know. Iâm just not much of a reality-TV [person], I guess.
What are your future plans for the podcast?
So my plans for the podcast right now are just rebuilding it, rebranding, and then trying to get really good guests on so more people will start watching it. I donât know. It feels good because now Iâm the official owner of it, so itâs my show and I can make it however I want to.
When youâre not podcasting, what do you do for fun? What brings you joy right now?
I really like cooking. I like flower shopping. Thatâs really my favorite thing to do.
Whatâs your favorite flower?
Oh man, you got me. Letâs see [long pause]âŠprobably a peony. They smell so good.
Itâs so nice that you and Chelsea have been successful and managed to stay friends. Do you guys ever see or talk to Tim Dickerson and DeArius Marlow, the creators of Tim & Dee TV, who asked you that question on the street?
Absolutely not. We just kind of parted ways with them. I donât really know if thereâs bad blood there or not. Itâs not from our end, but I think from their end it definitely is. But I donât know. I never wished anything bad on them. [Editorâs note: In two separate statements issued to Vanity Fair, Dickerson and Marlow denied there being any bad blood with Welch on their end. Marlow said that he believes Welch âdefinitely [has] âill willâ towards us,â and that his cocreator âgenuinely wanted the bestâ and âtried to help her.â Dickerson said the following: âWe donât have any bad blood or ill will towards her. We just donât like how we were portrayed in the situation.â They both further addressed their feelings toward Welch in a YouTube video.]
So theyâre not going to come on the podcast or anything like that?
Probably not [laughs].
Is it harder to trust people now, after all this has happened?
I would say so. Itâs not really that it;s hard to trust people. It really makes you sit there and question them more than you probably would have before. Just because you donât want to get in another pickle.
Your instagram bio includes the phrase âinfluence for good.â What does that mean to you?
I donât know. I want to give back to people because I never really asked for this. It just kind of fell in my lap. And I have so much, and I think itâs only fair that I give back.
You also have a role in Glen Powellâs new TV show, Chad Powers. What was it like filming that? Would you like to act more?
It was definitely something I would do again. It was so much fun. The whole team was great. I honestly think I could do it. I donât know if I could do a whole movie by myself, because thatâs a lot of work and lines to remember. But I donât know. Bits and pieces, just popping in here and thereâI think that would be so much fun.
Do you have any advice for people who go mega viral?
Yes. Definitely be careful what you tie your name into and who you trust.
What would your dream be career-wise?
Well, Iâm hoping my podcast gets rebranded in the way Iâm seeing it in my headâthe vision Iâve got. And I hope it grows.
You keep saying ârebranded.â What is it that youâd like to change about it?
Just making it more girlier and more authentic to me. It feels more of a show that Iâm comfortable talking on, talking with guests on. Comfortable for Chelsea to be on.
Were you not super comfortable, you and Chelsea?
Oh, when we first started, I was scared to death. I got used to being on other peopleâs podcasts, when they would interview me and they did all the asking questions. But when it was my turn to ask the questions, I froze up a little bitâŠI feel like Iâve definitely improved since the beginning. I feel like Iâve definitely improved a lot. Iâm sure I could still improve more.
What does the immediate future look like for you?
I go to Vegas tomorrow for poker. This week is a small table, and the next week is the big table.
Are you a good poker player?
Absolutely not. I hang on as long as I can.
Is it high stakes? Are you playing with your own money?
Welch: I donât know. I donât know, really, how it works. I just tell them Iâll be there, and then I kind of be there. I think they normally do it for you, but donât hold me to that. Amy, do you know?
Sisoyev: I know itâs a celebrity poker tournament, so usually they supply the chips.
Welch: It will probably be like last time.
Youâre playing in a celebrity poker tournament fresh off the crypto scandal. Do you have anything to say about those opticsâgambling after some people lost their money on your coin?
Sisoyev: Say the question again? Sorry, Iâm just confused.
Some might say that itâs not a great look to be gambling so soon after a money-related scandal. Iâm just wondering if Haliey has anything to say to that or has a response to that?
Sisoyev: Oh, weâre going to skip over that one.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
How Miriam Adelson Went From Big MAGA Winner to Casino Loser in Trumpâs First 100 Days
The UK Has Found Another Reason to Be Mad at Meghan Markle
How Sebastian Stan Became Hollywoodâs Most Daring Shape-Shifter
