Is Minnesota Quarterback Sam Darnold Really Dating ‘Hawk Tuah Girl’ Haliey Welch?

I don't know how this rumor got started, but it seems to be everywhere.

Minnesota Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold has been enjoying a pretty good year. After being considered a draft bust and floating around the league for a few years, he's now leading a team toward the playoffs.

As his resurrected career in Minnesota has seen his profile rise, he somehow got linked to the viral "15 minutes of fame" star Haliey Welch, known to most people as "Hawk Tuah Girl" for the comment she made in a video that made her a known personality.

I've seen countless social media posts and videos on Facebook, Instagram, X, and TikTok since the start of this year's football season that suggest the two are romantically linked.

When I first saw some of these posts, I rolled my eyes and assumed it wasn't true. But, for some bizarre reason, more and more posts and videos kept popping up all fall that continued to reinforce the rumor that the two were together.

To try to draw a crowd to her podcast, she teased a big announcement in November that she would reveal who her mystery boyfriend was - someone she refers publicly to as "Pookie".

She spent several days in mid-November teasing the "big reveal" on her podcast. She even leaned into the rumors in one of her posts about the upcoming podcast episode by using a photo of Darnold along with a few other celebrities like Matt Rife and Morgan Wallen in the post to suggest he could be "Pookie".

Rumors online suggested Welch hinted that her "Pookie" was a football player, which added fuel to the Sam Darnold fire, though the also hinted he had dark hair. Well, with Sam being a redhead, that just didn't make sense.

Even then, some people online suggested maybe she was just lying to throw people off the scent and that it actually was Darnold.

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In the end, my gut instinct was right. No, Sam Darnold is not dating Hawk Tuah Girl. In her big reveal podcast episode, Hailey interviewed "Pookie".

The man she calls "Pookie" is actually a guy named Kelby, someone she also refers to as "KK". In one video, where he is blurred out, he reveals he's a plumber...not a football player.

In addition, despite the rumors and suggestions (and what was likely an attempt to link herself to some celebrity names for attention for her podcast), she has apparently been with Kelby, er, Pookie, for a while now.

In another video clip from the podcast, it becomes clear they've been dating for some time - going further back than her famous "hawk tuah" video going viral earlier this year. In the podcast, they explained that Hailey actually warned him about the video coming out before it went super viral.

Here's what he actually looks like, in case you're curious. He talked in this clip from the podcast about the first time they hung out.

So, in the end, it was all a ruse. She made a lot of noise about secretly being with a big celebrity, and it's actually a plumber. Not Sam Darnold.

Well, that was fun. Hopefully the rumor posts start disappearing from the internet, because I am still seeing them weeks after the "big reveal" of who Pookie really is.