Fact Check: Is the Hawk Tuah Girl the daughter of a pastor, Harley Vickers? Viral article post debunked

The internet continues to buzz in with posts on the viral “Hawk Tuah” girl. As people who came across her video last week have been trying to unfold her identity, several social media accounts made false claims about the same.

One such example is a Facebook post from The Somerset Insider. The page claimed the woman from the viral trend is the daughter of Reverend Harley Vickers, who serves at Somerset's Little Hope of Baptist Church. According to the post, the pastor has issued a statement following his supposed daughter's virality online. He disapproved of the slightly NSFW yet cheeky nature of her response during a street interview, which made her go viral.

As The Somerset Insider detailed, Mr Vickers believed his daughter had been possessed by the Devil, who had uttered those words.

For the unreversed, YouTubers Tim & Dee TV interviewed the woman and her friend on the streets of Nashville, Tennessee, earlier in June. Dee asked them what would impress a man during intimate moments. One of the women answered, stressing her Southern accent:

“You gotta give him that 'hawk tuah' and spit on that thing.”

However, it is to be noted that the "Hawk Tuah" girl's identity is yet to be confirmed by a trusted or authentic source. The Somerset Insider is a parody publication that obtains playful and satirical takes on pop culture news. The page clarified it at the end of the Harley Vickers post, debunking its own claim:

"All content contained within this page, however similar to real events, is fictitious. Any real, semi-real or similar names, places, people, products, services and locales are used purely for satirical purposes, and the corresponding story details are purely fictional."

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Exploring the false claim about the viral "Hawk Tuah" girl's identity

In the June 22 post, The Somerset Insider satirically identified the "Hawk Tuah" or "Spit on that thing" girl as Katie, supposing her father, Reverend Harley Vickers, was upset over her overnight internet fame. The post quoted him:

"We didn't raise Katie to talk like that," lamented Reverend Vickers. "I fully believe that Satan entered Katie's body and it was his words we were hearing that day, not hers. I ask that everyone pray for my daughter. She didn't know what she was saying. She was possessed by evil!"

The Somerset Insider added that Katie has been keeping a low profile since the video made the rounds on social media. She has supposedly been spending time with her family and friends quietly until the sensation surrounding her dies down.

A similar claim about the viral woman's identity was posted on X last week. User LD Basler tweeted on June 21 that the woman from Tim & Dee's video goes by the name Katie Vickers, and hails from Paducah.

The rest of LD's tweet followed a similar storyline to The Somerset Insider's post, claiming her father is a prominent pastor who was disappointed with her behavior.

It is uncertain if The Somerset Insider took the plot from LD Basler's tweet and improvised it into their own version. However, the claims made by both of these accounts stand as inaccurate.

The YouTubers who shared the clip from their interview where the "Hawk Tuah" trend originated, later tagged two Instagram profiles, supposedly referring to the two women present in their video. According to that, the viral woman goes by the first name Hailey.

Although her Instagram account could not be found, leading to a string of confusion over her identity, Belfast-based clothing brand Fathead Threads shared two pictures with her last week, where they addressed her by Hailey Welch.