For the last month or so, the main character of the internet has been Haliey Welch aka Hawk Tuah Girl. Haliey initially went viral in June 2024 after she was featured in a man-on-the-street comedy clip from Tim & Dee TV. “You gotta give ’em that ‘hawk tuah’ and spit on that thang,” Haliey joked after they asked her “What’s one move in bed that makes a man go crazy every time?”
It proved to be the “hawk tuah” heard round the world.
Since then, Haliey has capitalized on her fame. She’s made thousands on “hawk tuah” merch, gained representation and done the rounds on celebrity podcasts from Bill Maher’s “Club Random” to Whitney Cummings’ “Good for You” to Howie Mandel’s “Howie Does Stuff.”
But perhaps the most surprising revelation of this whole internet moment — more surprising then a 22-year-old from rural Tennessee becoming famous for an onomatopoeic word meant to imply oral sex — is that Hawk Tuah Girl might be Jewish. That is, at least according to Howie Mandel’s podcast.
In a July 30 episode of “Howie Does Stuff,” the Jewish comedian purportedly had Haliey take a DNA spit-test on camera. Perhaps minutes and many “hawk tuah” jokes later, Mandel reads the results that allegedly say that Haliey is 97.7% Ashkenazi Jewish. When Howie reveals that everyone else on the podcast is also Jewish, Haliey lights up. “No shit!” she exclaims, before revealing that she recently tried and liked Katz’s Deli when she was in New York and learned the words “schmuck” and “putz.”
“I’m on top of the world,” she adds.
You can watch the clip here below.
But people online aren’t totally convinced. When someone posted the news of the clip on the Jewish subreddit, multiple Redditors replied that they thought it was just a prank or joke for the podcast. “She seems like a very sweet person and I was happy to read the title of this post but after seeing the video, it’s obvious this is just a silly bit,” one user wrote. “Feel like this was a bit. [The DNA test results] looks like a tiktok filter I’ve seen before,” another said.
It’s not impossible that Haliey Welch could have Jewish ancestry. In the clip, Haliey admitted that she had no knowledge of where her family hails from. (She was raised by her paternal grandmother, sees her father “somewhat regularly” and is not in contact with her mother.) Despite the stereotypes about American Jews being coastal, Jews do exist in the rural South and Appalachia. And when Haliey asks Howie if the results are real, he says yes.
But I have to admit that the DNA test does seem a bit suspect.
Despite the DNA testing kit bearing the 23andMe logo, how would the results come back so quickly? When asked if 23andMe currently sells a DNA test where the results are available in a matter of minutes, 23andMe Vice President of Communications Katie Watson told me via email, “No, it typically takes 4-6 weeks to get your results.” Expedited DNA testing (which a “Howie Does Stuff” producer says the test is) surely would’ve required collaboration from 23andMe. But Watson also confirmed that 23andMe was not involved in the segment.
Additionally, it seems incredibly unlikely that Haliey could have 97.7% Ashkenazi Jewish DNA without knowing. That would require her parents to both have nearly 100% Ashkenazi DNA, as well as her grandparents. If that were the case, wouldn’t Haliey’s paternal grandmother have at least mentioned a connection to Jewish community? Again, it is possible that Haliey has Jewish ancestry. But one Reddit user came up with a speculation in the Jewish subreddit that I tend to agree with: “They just brainstormed a way to get her to spit on camera, came up with a DNA test, and thought it would be funny to make the result unexpected.”
So is Haliey Welch aka Hawk Tuah Girl Jewish? In my opinion, it seems unlikely. At the very least, before the podcast she didn’t identify as Jewish religiously or culturally. Unfortunately, at the time of publication, neither Howie Mandel nor Haliey Welch’s PR team has responded for comment.
