Mia Khalifa has revealed how her decision to star in an infamous pornographic video still impacts her life.
In 2014 the Lebanese-American content creator featured in a sexually explicit video while wearing a hijab, a decision which caused considerable outrage and backlash around the world.
The video would lead to Khalifa becoming infamous, with the then 21-year-old receiving death threats from ISIS and even being disowned by her family.
12 years on and her short lived porn career is still the thing most people know Khalifa for, with the influencer recently revealing telling Adam Friedland the fallout from the still impacts her to this day.
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"So at that moment I still thought that no one was ever going to find out about this," she explained on his YouTube series, The Adam Friedland Show.
"I think the way it happened was very circumstantial," she continued, referencing events such as the #MeToo movement and the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack in January 2015 colliding with the release of the video.
"There was a lot of social things going on that that really were the reason why I was a part of that and why it kind of exploded the way it did... Everything happened very quickly."
Despite Khalifa - who's real name is Sarah Joe Chamoun - thinking her brief career would never get back to her parents, the international infamy was hard to hide from.
Her videos would rack up hundreds of millions of views on PornHub and her name would be at the top of the X-rated website's most searched for performers for years after, meaning there was nowhere to hide for the 33-year-old.
Her parents would swiftly release a statement condemning her, with Khalifa revealing to Friedland that they were subsequently estranged for 'a long time after that'.
The attention associated with the video followed Khalifa around for years, making her feel like a 'burden' when she tried to work as a bookkeeper at a construction company and leading to her losing trust in her relationships.
This included with intimate partners, with Khalifa revealing she's only had two relationships in 10 years due to her distrust of potential lovers.
"I can't even like mentally get past somebody wanting to be with me for the novelty or for that reason. So, I'd much rather just be alone," she said.
"I've been in two long-term relationships since then and that's that's it in the in the last 10 years.
"There was a lot of instances where I had interactions with people [and] realised, wow, my life is not the same."
This isn't the only time in which Khalifa has been brutally honest about how a short stint in the adult industry impacted her life, with her current career choices seeing the content creator make a marked move away from her explicit image.
She has since launched a jewellery business and made several appearances at Paris Fashion Week. Khalifa also works as an influencer, with OnlyFans being her biggest moneymaker. When it came to the decision to join the subscriber platform, Khalifa said expressed the importance of being in control of her own body.
"I don’t do nudity past what I’ve done in a fashion magazine, which is like a see-through shirt or something," she told The New York Times in 2024, adding: "So I feel secure."
Topics: Mia Khalifa, Sex and Relationships, Adult Industry
Brenna Cooper