Hawk Tuah Girl breaks her silence on lawsuit against crypto partners

First comes the fame, then the cryptocurrency – then the lawsuit.

Haliey Welch, a Tennessee native who became an Internet star this summer thanks to a street interview in which she pantomimed spitting during oral sex (earning her the onomatopoeic nickname “Hawk Tuah Girl”), managed the rare feat for a long time to remain in the spotlight months after her viral outbreak. She founded an animal protection organization, amassed millions of social media followers and reached the top of the charts with her podcast Say Tuahand even threw out the opening pitch at a Mets game. She was America’s sweetheart, and it seemed like she was here to stay.

But disaster struck earlier this month when Welch released $HAWK, a cryptocurrency based on her valuable personal brand. Such crypto assets, called “meme coins,” are considered volatile investments and tend to trade according to the boom-and-bust cycles of the online phenomena they inspire. The value of Welch Coin, developed by partners running a foundation in the Cayman Islands, soared on its debut but collapsed within hours, plunging more than 90 percent from a market cap of nearly $500 million US dollars to less than 30 million US dollars.

Welch and her partners — Alex Larson Schultz, who goes by “Doc Hollywood” online, and Clinton So, whose platform overHere made the $HAWK offer — hosted an Audio Spaces event on X (formerly Twitter) that evening, to counteract the allegations of fraud. They faced difficult questions from investors in the crypto scene and Stephen Findeisen, the YouTuber known for investigating crypto scams under the pseudonym Coffeezilla. Welch himself remained almost entirely silent during the hour-long conversation, as Schultz and So repeatedly denied coordinating a pump-and-dump or “carpet-pull” scheme in which a group of wallets that originally received most of the overvalued $ HAWK contained, unloading it in a coordinated manner and leaving other investors with a worthless asset.

The conversation ended abruptly when Welch interrupted her and said she was going to bed, a farewell that quickly became part of her meme story, in part because she then disappeared from public view. No new episodes of Say Tuah were released and Welch’s social media accounts were deleted. Crypto traders enthusiastically speculated that Welch could be in serious legal trouble, joking that she would go straight to “Tuah” prison or at least a “Talk-Tuah” judge. At least one investor filed a complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

It took two weeks for Welch to address the fiasco again. On Friday, she posted on X confirming that a class action lawsuit was underway. However, only Schultz and So, as well as overHere and the Cayman Islands-based Tuah the Moon Foundation, are named in the lawsuit. “I take this situation extremely seriously and would like to reach out to my fans, affected investors and the broader community,” Welch wrote. “I fully cooperate with and am committed to supporting the legal team representing the affected individuals and helping to uncover the truth, hold the responsible parties accountable and resolve this matter,” she advised those who had lost money on $HAWK to contact Burwick Law, the firm that filed the lawsuit against Schultz and So and advertised its services on X in the immediate aftermath of the coin crash.

The lawsuit involves a dozen plaintiffs who claim they lost a total of more than $150,000. It alleges that the defendants “exploited Welch’s celebrity status and connections” and “created a speculative frenzy” to drive up the price of the coin at the start of trading and attract “first-time cryptocurrency participants” who were viewed as fans of the coin Project attracted Welch. The complaint alleges that Schultz and So violated securities laws and even suggests, as part of the Spaces call, that they attempted to circumvent those laws. It is also noted that $HAWK was never registered with the SEC.

The decision to go after Welch’s associates and not the self-proclaimed “Queen.” of Memes” itself suggests what many observers have already assumed: that she played no significant role in the conception or distribution of $HAWK and merely served as a face for marketing the token. As Coffeezilla reported, Welch had received an upfront payment of $125,000 to promote the coin to her community, along with 50 percent of the net trading proceeds after deducting operating costs paid to third parties. On top of that, she owns 10 percent of the total $HAWK supply, which she can’t sell for a year. It is unclear whether these missions have any effect.

The nature of Welch’s involvement with Burwick Law is also unclear, but presumably she has a digital paper trail proving that she was deceived or misadvised by her crypto partners – if that is indeed the case. Such material would likely support the lawsuit’s allegations of securities violations.

For now, it looks like Welch is out of trouble and may even get to keep her sponsorship fee for participating in the $HAWK disaster. As for whether she can get her influencer career back on track, well, she wouldn’t be the first to weather a major crypto scandal – just don’t expect her to talk about it when her podcast returns. Curiously, Welch’s first public statement since withdrawing from the controversial Spaces call in early December drove up the price of $HAWK, briefly giving it a market cap of over $20 million before its value fell again. The coin is currently worth less than $0.002, but people are still buying and selling it. Further proof that in the blockchain economy, some people just can’t resist the foresight.