Hailey Welsh, the person who became the face of the “Hawk Tuah” meme, has opened up about the emotional impact the rapid collapse of her HAWK memecoin had on her.
In a raw, heartfelt chat with Andrew Callaghan on his Channel 5 YouTube series, she admitted the whole ordeal “traumatized” her in ways she never expected and explained she got pulled into promoting the coin without really grasping the crypto world.
“I got talked into doing something that I didn’t know anything about, really,” she shared.
“But you’ve got to be cautious what you put your name on.” She stressed she had zero technical know-how to create or manage the token and never touched any of the funds herself.
Your completely free resource hub designed to boost your knowledge of cryptocurrencies
What happened with Hailey Welsh and the HAWK memecoin?
When the HAWK memecoin exploded in December 2024, it skyrocketed to a crazy $490 million market cap in just hours, only to crash over 91% the next day. That was a plunge of around $41 million. Many called it a classic rug pull, sparking fury across crypto communities.
Hailey Welsh cooperated fully with an FBI investigation in 2025, which cleared her of any wrongdoing. No charges came her way, and a lawsuit filed against the launch team and entities didn’t name her personally. Instead, it focused on claims of unregistered securities. Her lawyer put the total losses for everyday retail investors at roughly $200,000, insisting it wasn’t the massive wipeout some claimed.
Still, the backlash hit Hailey Welsh hard.
Death threats rolled in, people accused her of owing them money, and she retreated from the spotlight for months to protect her mental health.
“I was starting to get death threats and everything else,” she recalled.
“People are telling me I owe them all this money, and I’m like, ‘I didn’t do this.’ … It’s rough. It’s one of those things where if you come out of the house, you put your head down.”
Not everyone’s buying the remorse angle, though. Onchain investigator ZachXBT rather strongly feels that “no one should feel bad for the ‘trauma.’”
He pointed out how the crypto crowd warned Hailey Welsh against launching any token, yet she went ahead and then vanished amid the fallout while followers took the hit.
Through it all, Hailey Welsh stands by her side of the story that she trusted the wrong people, learned a brutal lesson, and never meant for anyone to get burned.
