Hulu’s sports comedy Chad Powers is chock-full of cameos from the football world.
Episode 1 kicks off with appearances by sports commentators Kirk Herbstreit and Chris Fowler. Chad Powers‘ trailer confirms that former New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning is also slated to make an appearance. Manning is an executive producer on Chad Powers, alongside his brother Peyton Manning. The entire show is based on a segment from Manning’s Eli’s Places series, in which Manning joins walk-on football tryouts at Penn State in disguise.
However, Chad Powers‘ premiere episode also features an off-the-wall cameo not from the world of sports, but from the world of internet infamy. That cameo comes from none other than Haliey Welch, aka the “Hawk Tuah Girl.”
Welch skyrocketed to fame over the summer of 2024, when her advice to “spit on that thang” in a Tim & Dee TV man-on-the-street interview went mega-viral. Welch spun that virality into a career, hawking merch, starting her podcast Talk Tuah, and securing a Chad Powers cameo spot that, by virtue of the speed of internet meme cycles, already feels a tad dated.
Welch appears less than five minutes into Chad Powers, when disgraced quarterback Russ Holliday (Glen Powell) runs into her in a club. He’s stoked to meet her, howling, “Hawk tuah, spit on that thing!” with glee. Welch, on the other hand, is less than impressed, telling Russ, “Please don’t tell people we met.”
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Welch’s annoyance at Russ for yelling her catchphrase at her and not even knowing her actual name mirrors Russ’ own experience with internet notoriety. After his championship loss meltdown went viral, Russ got labeled “scumbag quarterback” for all eternity. Similarly, Welch will forever be known as the “Hawk Tuah Girl.”
Chad Powers was shot from Aug. to Oct. of 2024, when Welch was at the height of her fame. However, since the show wrapped, she’s had her own Russ Holliday-esque downfall.
In Dec. 2024, Welch launched her own cryptocurrency memecoin, $HAWK. While initially highly valuable, the coin quickly plummeted, leading people to accuse Welch and her team of a rug pull. Welch disappeared from the public eye after the controversy. When she did issue a statement about the rug pull, the internet lambasted her. The most recent episode of Talk Tuah, dated May 20, 2025, is titled, “Haliey Welch Tells All – Crypto Incident.”
Welch also addressed $HAWK’s crash at a live taping of Talk Tuah at VidCon 2025, saying that if a man had been behind the crypto rug pull, he “probably would have been promoted.”
Between walkouts from the VidCon taping and the internet’s roast of her crypto scandal, it’s clear Welch has gone from unlikely internet star to viral disgrace. That lends an odd prescience to her Chad Powers cameo, with her disdain for Russ becoming an unlikely look into her own future.
Chad Powers is now streaming on Hulu.
