Mia Khalifa, a media personality who shot to fame with a short-lived career in pornography, has found herself in hot water over tweets commenting approvingly about Hamas’s actions in Israel.
On her X (formerly Twitter) account Khalifa had written, ‘If you can look at the situation in Palestine and not be on the side of Palestinians, then you are on the wrong side of apartheid and history will show that in time.’ More contentiously, she tweeted, ‘Can someone please tell the freedom fighters in Palestine to flip their phones and film horizontal’. The latter tweet has since been deleted.
She has since claimed that her tweets were not meant as an endorsement of terrorism, but as a statement of support for Palestinian ‘freedom fighters’.
She has, however, suffered a number of commercial blows as a consequence. The adult-entertainment company Playboy removed her channel from its website after announcing: ‘Over the past few days, Mia has made disgusting and reprehensible comments celebrating Hamas’s attacks on Israel and the murder of innocent men, women and children. We encourage free expression and constructive political debate, but we have a zero-tolerance policy for hate speech. We expect Mia to understand that her words and actions have consequences.’
A partnership with a company selling recreational drugs was cancelled for similar reasons. The CEO of Red Light Holland, Todd Shapiro, tweeted: ‘This is such a horrendous tweet @miakhalifa. Consider yourself fired effective immediately. Simply disgusting. Beyond disgusting. Please evolve and become a better human being. The fact you are condoning death, rape, beatings and hostage taking is truly gross. No words can explain your ignorance. We need humans to come together, especially in the face of tragedy. I pray for you to become a better person. However, it clearly seems like it’s too late for you.’
Unrepentant, Khalifa shot back: ‘I’d say supporting Palestine has lost me business opportunities, but I’m more angry at myself for not checking whether or not I was entering into business with Zionists. My bad.’
In addition, the prominent adult entertainment website Pornbub reportedly ‘froze’ her earnings on the platform and donated them to relief organisations in Israel.
Khalifa, a native of Lebanon though largely raised in the United States, had a brief stint in the pornography industry in 2014. The novelty of her ethnicity and the fact that she performed while wearing a hijab (although she is apparently not from a Muslim background) saw her attract a great deal of attention. The publicity strained her personal relationships and saw Islamists make death threats against her.