Former porn actress Mia Khalifa has told how she became a global adult star by “accident” but walked away from the industry to become an OnlyFans model and “feminist icon”.
Her world was turned upside down after a stint as a sex worker in the adult film industry, RadarOnline can reveal.
Khalifa has told how she became a global adult star by ‘accident’ but walked away from the industry to become an OnlyFans model.
She explained she left the trade shortly after being persuaded to do an explicit scene cosplaying as a Muslim woman, but couldn’t turn the clock back on her past.
The Lebanese-American shot to fame as a 21-year-old when she performed in the viral video dressed in the hijab, a headcovering and piece of modest clothing sacred to Muslim women.
The footage went viral within hours, with Khalifa receiving death threats from both Islamophobes and ISIS alike, after being ranked the number one actor on Pornhub.
Now 31-years-old, Khalifa – who was raised as a Catholic – recalls the experience and why it pushed her to walk away from pornography.
“My brand at the beginning wasn’t something that was much in my control. I became infamous by accident. I was working at a law office, and I started to feel like a distraction in the office.
“Anyone who would come in, I, there would be whispers in the waiting room. And if other attorneys came to visit from other firms, there would be whispers within that.
“And I just started to feel very much like a distraction, and uncomfortable. And that’s when I realized, like, this isn’t going to change. This isn’t going to go anywhere. This isn’t going to get better. I don’t like feeling this way. I don’t like the women that I work with looking at me a certain way, and I especially don’t like the men looking at me a certain way.
“Because it’s a bit of, like, a zoo animal. It’s that type of fascination and those type of whispers. Not necessarily to say that it was abusive or disrespectful, but it was just like, that’s not something that I wanted to keep dealing with.
“And I reopened social media and I decided to actually try to be an influencer and to be someone who was a public person, if that was the fate that I had sealed for myself.”
She added: “I entered the adult industry in October of 2014, and very quickly I was pressured to perform in a video where the context was that I was an Arab veiled woman.
“The intent was to exploit the fact that I was Arabic and spoke Arabic, and I went through with it. Not long after, I would say maybe a couple hours after it premiered, the avalanche started.
“Every news outlet picked it up, and everybody had an opinion. I was completely out of control of my image, my reputation. I feel like a lot of people have slutty phases when they’re 20, 21. Unfortunately, mine was in 4K.”
