rewrite this title Hawk Tuah Girl Wakes Up, Plays Ball With Lawyers Suing Meme Coin Makers – Decrypt

After 372 hours, Haliey Welch, better known as the Hawk Tuah girl, has finally woken from her slumber to announce she’s made some new friends—namely, the same law firm that’s suing her business partners over her failed meme coin project.

Sixteen days ago, Welch’s would-be meme coin debut, a Solana token called HAWK, imploded at launch, enriching an apparently interconnected web of early investors and leaving most retail traders in the lurch. That evening, Welch told an irate audience on an X Spaces that she was going to bed and would see everyone in the morning—before going radio silent for weeks on end.

On Friday, Welch broke that silence by announcing she is cooperating with the law firm that sued the HAWK token’s creators Thursday for allegedly violating American securities laws.

“I am fully cooperating with and am committed to assisting the legal team representing the individuals impacted, as well as to help uncover the truth, hold the responsible parties accountable, and resolve this matter,” Welch said on X (formerly known as Twitter). 

A spokesperson for Welch told Decrypt that the influencer was “totally siloed” from the HAWK project and “had zero control over it.”

The spokesperson also asserted that Welch only received a fixed sponsorship fee for lending her likeness to the meme coin project, adding “there was no guarantee she would make any additional money from the meme coin thereafter.”

That story runs somewhat counter to one put forward earlier this week by the team taking responsibility for building most of HAWK. The crypto token launch platform OverHere said on Tuesday that it only took leadership over the doomed token because one of Welch’s associates, a mysterious figure known as “Doc Hollywood,” “vanished when things got hard.”

The OverHere team claimed it took zero fees from HAWK and made zero profit on the project, and pointed the finger at Welch and Doc Hollywood for an alleged lack of transparency.

The lawsuit filed Thursday against the project—by 12 American plaintiffs claiming to have suffered damages in excess of $151,000 from the project—listed OverHere as one of multiple defendants. It did not list Welch. 

Alexandra Roberts, a law professor at Northeastern University, told Decrypt that she has never before seen a situation like this—in which a celebrity such as Welch has actively aided a lawsuit aimed at a project the celebrity lent their likeness to.

“I think it’s a great PR move,” Roberts said. “I think she’s trying to get out in front of it and make a really clear statement: ‘Not only did I not know what was going on, but I want to advocate on behalf of the people who were swindled.’”

Burwick Law, the firm suing HAWK’s creators, told Decrypt that it does not represent Welch, but is in conversations with her counsel.

When asked why Welch was not listed as a co-defendant in the HAWK lawsuit, Max Burwick, managing partner at Burwick Law, said the decision was intentional, and hinted it might help make his clients whole sooner. 

“In this matter, we have chosen the strategy we believe to be most effective in helping our clients achieve meaningful results,” Burwick told Decrypt.

Edited by Andrew Hayward