The Breaking Bad actor Dean Norris, most recognizable for playing Hank Schrader in the series, suffered a hacked X account with scammers touting a fake token called DEAN. At one point, this token attained a market capitalization of more than $8 million before completely crumbling.
In a post video dated January 26, Dean Norris confirmed that his account had been hacked and ordered the memecoin as a “complete, fake scam.” He reacted angrily to the criticisms from Reddit users by saying, “Go f*** yourselves” for pointing at him as the source of the incident.
The hackers advertised on Norris’s account, and one of the pieces of content included a photoshopped image of him holding up a sign with the ticker DEAN and the date it launches. A manipulated video appeared to show Dean Norris endorsing the token, stating, “Hey, it’s me, Dean, and on January 25th, I’m declaring it’s real.” Speculation on Reddit suggests the video may have been a deepfake or a misused Cameo clip, as Norris is active on the platform, which allows users to request custom videos from celebrities.
Blockchain tracker DexScreener said that DEAN Norris peaked at a market cap of $8.43 million on January 25 but has since crashed by more than 96%, now worth less than $60,000.
In an updated statement, Dean Norris clarified that he does not have a Telegram account and rarely uses X. “I didn’t know I was hacked until I started getting texts from friends saying it’s out there,” he said.
It is the second time Norris’s account has been targeted in a crypto-related scheme. In November, on-chain investigator ZachXBT connected the hacking of Norris’s account, among several others, including McDonald’s and Usher, to a cryptocurrency scheme with a former Fortnite player.
This follows a spate of other high-profile memecoin activity, such as former President Donald Trump’s surprise memecoin launch on January 18, which briefly took the market cap for the token nearly to $9 billion.
