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Breaking Bad star Dean Norris says his X account was hacked as part of an elaborate scam to promote a meme coin – a crypto currency often inspired by internet trends – called “$DEAN”.
Norris, 61, who played Hank Schrader in the 16-time Emmy Award-winning drama, spoke out after the actor said he was alerted the social media swindle by friends.
“I’ve decided to launch my own crypto currency called $DEAN,” a post from fraudsters posted to Norris’ X account read along with an external link.
The $DEAN token reached a market cap as high as $8.35 million on Saturday, according to data from DEX Screener. On Monday morning, more than 24 hours after a video posted by Norris confirming he was hacked, $DEAN token’s market cap plummeted to $51,000.
After X users began querying whether the posts were legitimate, the hackers uploaded a seemingly photoshopped photograph of Norris holding a notepad with the handwritten note “$DEAN” and the meme coin’s launch date: January 25, 2025.
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In a harrowing twist, the hackers are believed to have purchased a five-second message from Norris’ Cameo, a video sharing platform that provides bespoke, paid-for messages from a well-known person.
In the clip, Norris says, “hey it’s me Dean… It’s January 25th, I’m declaring it’s real,” unintendedly appearing to confirm the validity of the cryptocurrency venture.
When followers asked Norris’s X account for more proof, the fraudsters shared the video of Norris to his feed.
Other posts shared AI-generated photographs of Norris smiling when overlaid with “$DEAN friends” and frowning with the words “everybody else”.
After appearing to be locked out of his X account, late on Saturday, Norris took to Instagram to calmly alert his two-million followers that his account had been hacked, and the scammers were “yapping about some crypto currency” venture.
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At approximately 11pm on Saturday evening, Norris appeared to have regained access to his X account after logging a complaint with the social media platform.
“I WAS HACKED!!! ALL A FAKE SCAM!!,” he wrote.
In a video posted four minutes later, Norris said: “Hey, this is Dean Norris – actually – and that whole crazy crypto s**t was a complete fake scam. I was hacked and I just got it back… whatever the f**k that is just ignore it.”
Norris added that he infrequently uses X, and said that he doesn’t have a Telegram account.
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He also called out people on Reddit that accused him of launching a crypto token and using it to “pump and dump” – a practice which sees criminals urge investors to buy shares to inflate its price before selling their own shares – the tokens for a profit.
“THANKS A**HOLES ON REDDIT WHO CALLED ME ALL SORTS OF S**T FOR SOMETHING I DIDN’T DO. GO F**K YOURSELVES.”
It’s not the first time Norris has been hacked on the social media platform. In September, his account tweeted about another scam meme coin, $SHRADER.
“I was hacked. Nothing too bad just send fake ‘Please retweet this’. Probably about crypto or something,” he wrote on X on September 26.
“Anyway sorry to all who may have gotten a fake direct message from me asking for a retweet.”
The Independent has contacted Norris and X for more information.
