Haliey Welch says federal officials took her phone and “swept” it during the fallout from her much-discussed crypto coin controversy, ultimately coming to the conclusion “this girl’s a dumbass.”
In a recent interview on Savannah Chrisley’s podcast, Welch, who first rose to viral fame thanks to an off-the-cuff remark about saliva and oral sex in 2024 (i.e. “Hawk Tuah”), reflected on how she “kinda ran with it” amid the ensuing meme’s popularity. From there, she was asked specifically about the crypto controversy, which centered on the disastrous launch of a coin inspired by the meme.
“That was a hot ass mess,” Welch said. “Let me just tell you, I’ve learned. That’s something that I hate that it happened and I hate that people got affected by it, but that’s something that I needed to, like, open my eyes a little bit. You gotta be so careful with what you put your name on.”
The Chad Powers guest star elaborated a bit further, though she admitted she “can’t really talk too much in depth about it” for now.
“The feds up here, they come to my house and they’re like, ‘Oh, we just wanna talk to you,’” she told Chrisley. “So I done that, talked to ‘em, fully cooperative. Then they ended up asking if they could have my phone for a few days, so I was like ‘Yeah that’s fine. I don’t have anything to hide.’ They full-blown, like, took my phone. We literally sent it off in the mail and it was gone for, like, four days before I got it back.”
Ultimately, Welch explained, nothing of note was found.
“They swept the whole thing,” she said. “They were like, ‘This girl’s a dumbass. She ain’t got nothing on her phone.’ I was like, ‘Well, I told you.’”
This isn't the first time Welch has addressed the crypto coin controversy. In February, she said during an episode of her own Talk Tuah podcast that she was “still a little shook up” about it, saying at the time that work was underway behind the scenes to “make everything right.”
More recently, Welch said she “did not make a dime” from the coin.
