Hailey Welch, a.k.a. the Hawk Tuah Girl, one of the unlikeliest of all unlikely breakout viral stars, is now the subject of a heavy metal tribute song.
For anyone who's been lucky enough to have spent the last month visiting another galaxy, Welch shot to international fame after being interviewed in the street in early June by the Tim & Dee TV YouTube channel. Asked to pick a bedroom manoeuvre that might drive a man wild, she responded, "Oh, you gotta give him that hawk tuah and spit on that thang, you get me?”
Those 16 words would change Welch's life. Five weeks later she's been able to quit her job in a spring factory, sold more than $65,000 worth of merchandise, appeared live onstage in front of 70,000 Zach Bryan fans at the Nissan Stadium in Nashville, DJed with basketball legend Shaquille O'Neill, been reportedly paid $30,000 for a pair of public appearances at venues on Long Island, and attracted more than 1.6M followers on Instagram.
Now she has a heavy metal tribute song, which kicks off with the lines, "Met a girl named Hailey, Shy and quiet at first / But once you get to know her, she’s got that thirst." And it's quite possible that the tune has been recorded using AI, which would make Hawk Tuah the most 2024 thing that will ever happen in 2024, and we're only in July.
"I want to do something that actually matters and make a difference," Welch told Rolling Stone last week. "That's what the world needs."