Given her roller-coaster year, the exceedingly polite Welch can probably relate a bit more to Spears’s saga now. “I see things a lot differently than
Given her roller-coaster year, the exceedingly polite Welch can probably relate a bit more to Spears’s saga now. “I see things a lot differently than I used to,” she says. “My eyes are open a lot wider.”
Below, Welch chats with Vanity Fair about taking a much-needed mental health break, her acting aspirations, and how she learned to embrace being Hawk Tuah.
Vanity Fair: You recently took an extended break from public life. How does it feel now to be back in the spotlight?
Haliey Welch: Um, it’s definitely been a little bit of a struggle, but I feel like rebuilding is what I needed to do. And it’s my perfect chance to rebuild now, so that’s really what I’m working on.
Some of the comments you get on Instagram are so mean. Do you read comments? How do you handle them?
I do my best not to read ’em, but sometimes you just can’t support yourself. Everybody’s entitled to an opinion, obviously, but I don’t know. I try not to let it get me down.
Obviously, there was the meme coin incident. Of course, it’s a complicated issue.
Of course.
I can barely understand it myself. Crypto is so confusing.
Yeah, I don’t really understand it much myself either [laughs]. I don’t know. It was one of those things that just happened, and I feel sorry for everybody that just lost money…. I don’t know. I’ve learned from that. You got to be really careful what you tie your name to, and you definitely need to know what you’re getting yourself into when you agree to do it. That’s something I definitely should have done beforehand. I don’t know. It’s a crazy world we live in.
What have you learned from that experience? Do you have anything to say to the people who lost their money?
I would say, personally, what I learned from it…let’s see…I don’t know. I just feel really bad for anybody that lost money. All my comments, if you read those, people are like, “Oh, well, I lost a lot of money in this. Now my kids have to go without stuff.” I don’t know. It makes me feel, like, really sorry for it.
After the crypto scandal, you went off the grid. What were you doing for those three months? Where were you?
Oh, I hate to say this, but it was a much-needed mental health—just…what do you call it? A mental health break, I guess, is what you can call it.
I would see my friends. I would go out and eat. That’s really about it. I don’t ever get out and do much when I’m home. I like being by myself.
How badly did the scandal affect your mental health?
I would say it probably didn’t get as bad as it did when the video—like, my interview on Broadway [in Nashville]—got leaked, but it was almost the same. I don’t know. It’s really overwhelming. Your whole life’s basically online, and then people can say anything they want to you. And then you got to sit there with the thought, Oh, a lot of people just lost money because of something you did, like, [something] you led them to. You got to be really powerful to be in this kind of space, I feel like.
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