Haliey Welch Breaks Silence on HAWK Rugpull in Now-Removed Podcast Episode

Key Takeaways

• Haliey Welch has come online nearly two months after the collapse of the memecoin she promoted.
• She claims the token’s creators misled her, and she was unaware of their plans to rug-pull investors.
• Welch was paid $125,000 upfront, with a promised additional $200,000 that she says she never received.

Haliey Welch, the viral internet personality known as the “Hawk Tuah” girl, has spoken publicly for the first time since her namesake cryptocurrency project collapsed, wiping out millions in investor funds.

In a now-deleted podcast episode , Welch denied any involvement in the rug pull, insisting she had no idea the token’s creators planned to dump their holdings and abandon the project.

Haliey Welch Claims She Was Duped

During the podcast, Welch explained that a friend introduced her to the team behind the HAWK token. She said the promoters assured her it was a legitimate project that would “change the way crypto works.”

Welch claimed she followed a script provided by the project’s backers, adding her own words to endorse the token. However, she said she became suspicious when the team grew evasive on launch day.

HAWK token surged to a $490 million market cap before suddenly losing more than 95% of its value within hours.

Investors accused Welch of knowingly promoting a scam, but she attempted to clear her name in an X Spaces discussion—only to leave abruptly after being confronted by crypto investigator CoffeeZilla.

Holders who lost money in the HAWK collapse have since filed a lawsuit against the token’s creators. However, Welch has not been named as a defendant in the case.

Welch has remained silent on social media for nearly two months.

$125,000 Upfront, $200,000 Never Paid

Welch’s lawyer, who accompanied her on the podcast, confirmed that she was paid $125,000 upfront to promote HAWK.

She was also promised an additional $200,000 after 30 days, but she claims she never received the second payment.

Welch was also supposed to receive a 10% allocation of the token supply, with a one-year lockup period and 5% of the locked tokens.

However, her lawyer revealed that the project’s tokenomics kept changing post-launch.

At launch, only 3% of the total HAWK supply was available for trading, while 17% had been sold in a pre-sale, raising $2.8 million. In total, just 20% of the token’s supply was in circulation.

Welch maintained that she was merely a spokesperson and had no knowledge of the project’s true intentions.