Hawk Tuah Girl Says HAWK Crash Left Her Traumatized

Hailey Welch has addressed the fallout from the HAWK memecoin collapse, linking the episode to months of backlash, threats, and legal attention around the failed token launch.

Good to Know

• HAWK launched in December 2024 and briefly reached a market cap above $490 million.
• The token fell more than 91% the next day and drew rug pull claims online.
• An investor lawsuit targeted the team and entities behind the launch, but not Welch.

Hailey Welch Says HAWK Fallout Left Her Traumatized

Hailey Welch, widely known online as the Hawk Tuah girl, said the collapse of HAWK and the reaction that followed took a heavy personal toll. Speaking to Andrew Callaghan on Channel 5, Welch said she got pulled into a crypto project she did not understand well enough.

“I got talked into doing something that I didn’t know anything about, really, but you’ve got to be really careful what you put your name on,” Welsh told Andrew Callaghan of the Channel 5 YouTube channel on Friday.

Welch said she cooperated with an FBI probe in 2025 and was cleared of wrongdoing. She also said she did not receive any of the launch funds and did not have the technical knowledge needed to create or run the memecoin.

Even so, public anger landed on her. Welch said she received death threats and stayed out of sight for months as pressure built around the failed launch.

“I was starting to get death threats and everything else. People telling me I owe them all this money, and I’m like, ‘I didn’t do this.’ I’m sitting here, and I’m the one getting hit for this. It’s rough. It’s one of those things where if you come out of the house, you put your head down.”

HAWK went live in December 2024 and ran up to more than $490 million in market capitalization within hours. By the following day, the token had dropped to about $41 million, a collapse of more than 91%. That drop drove widespread rug pull allegations across crypto social media and kept the project in circulation across gaming, influencer, and digital asset coverage.

Welch also said the actual retail investor damage was lower than many people assumed during the backlash. According to her lawyer, losses for real people totaled about $200,000.

Separate from that, an investor lawsuit filed in December 2024 accused the team and entities behind the HAWK launch of selling unregistered securities. Welch was not named in the case.