Hawk Tuah girl breaks silence for first time in weeks addressing truth behind major cryptocurrency scandal

After what has seemed like weeks of silence, the woman known better as the ‘Hawk Tuah girl’ has spoken out.

Haliey Welch has pretty much flown off the radar after becoming embroiled in a bit of a controversial cryptocurrency scandal.

In case you’ve successfully wiped your brain of some of the more bizarre viral moments from last year, I’m talking about the woman who got pretty big on the internet for that ‘hawk tuah’ and ‘spit on that thang’ video.

That little street interview clip saw her go on to receive so much publicity she could quit her job and start up the podcast, Talk Tuah with Haliey Welch.

But towards the end of 2024, the capitalisation on her success saw her branching out into crypto, with the coin named '$HAWK token'.

At first, it rocketed to a value of $490 million (£393 million) but then plummeted quickly with CoinTelegraph reporting it flopped by more than 90 percent. So those who had invested in the heavily promoted token collectively lost millions.

Lawsuits were launched against the coin’s creators and accusations were made of unlawfully promoting and selling cryptocurrency.

Welch however only fronted the $HAWK token and had not been named as a defendant in the lawsuit. She did face backlash online though.

And now she is back with Talk Tuah, as an episode with FaZe Clan’s founder Banks has been ‘leaked’ on social media.

As the star got pretty teary over it all, he promised her: "It’s all gonna be OK."

Welch explained that the idea had been brought to her as a ‘long-term coin’ that would ‘change the way everybody thinks about crypto’.

🚨LEAKED🚨

Full @HalieyWelchX Talk Tuah Episode with @Banks

Hawk Tuah finally wakes up!

00:00 INTRO
00:40 HALIEY MESSED UP
2:26 HALIEY’S OFFICIAL STATEMENT
4:00 ALL OF HALIEY’S INCOME FROM THIS EP IS GOING TO ANIMAL CHARITIES
5:00 BEHIND THE SCENES OF $HAWK COIN LAUNCH… pic.twitter.com/PZpbREnQng

— Nick O’Neill (@chooserich) February 6, 2025

“And I feel really bad for all the people that got affected by it,” Welch said. “And it just didn’t go the way I planned.”

In this leaked video, she said the ‘biggest mistake’ was trusting the guy who was a ‘friend of a friend’ in taking on this crypto deal.

“I probably should have looked into him a little bit more,” Welch added.

The viral star went on to say this guy was a ‘little bit weird’ on the day of the launch which made her ‘suspicious’.

So in an attempt to hear Haliey Welch’s side of the Crypto scam story, I agreed to do her first podcast back.

I had heavy stipulations including;

1) Not allowing markets to be manipulated by leaking this episodes existence before a resolution was found.

2) Her team finding… pic.twitter.com/X3TW5nZmtR

— FaZe Banks (@Banks) February 6, 2025

Since this Talk Tuah episode has been ‘leaked’, Banks has hit out, slamming Welch’s team for ‘fumbling the bag yet again’.

He explained heavy stipulations for appearing on the podcast and said: “These were nonstarters and we were told this episode would only ever see the light of day if we explicitly green lit it.” Banks went on to tell Welch to ‘fire everybody’ as he added: “Poor girl, it’s a wonder how she found herself in this position in the first place.”

LADbible Group has contacted Welch’s reps for comment.