In an interview with The New York Times, former adult film star Mia Khalifa said that she "became infamous by accident" after she starred in an explicit video in which she wore a hijab.
The 31-year-old, who retired from the pornography industry just three months after she made her debut, said that she wasn't in full control of what her "brand" was at the beginning of her career in 2014. "I became infamous by accident. 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," she shared. "The intent was to exploit the fact that I was Arabic and spoke Arabic, and I went through with it."
The scene, a threesome for pornography company Bang Bros, immediately sparked controversy. "Not long after, I would say maybe a couple hours after it premiered, the avalanche started," she said. "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."
Following her retirement, Khalifa wanted to put her brief pornography career behind her, but it quickly became apparent that she couldn't do that.
"I was working at a law office. Anyone who would come in, there would be whispers in the waiting room. I started to feel like a distraction — and uncomfortable," she shared. "That’s when I realized, this isn’t going to change; this isn’t going to get better. 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 in a certain way because it’s like a zoo animal. So I reopened social media, and I decided to try to be an influencer and a public person if that was the fate that I had sealed for myself."
Born in Beirut, Lebanon, Khalifa has since pursued a career as a personality on social media, and has appeared as a model for brands such as Y/Project. She also runs a successful page on OnlyFans. Despite using the platform, she suggested that she wants to make sure that she's not promoting it "as an answer to women who are looking for easy money."
Khalifa suggested that women looking to create explicit content for OnlyFans shouldn't do so unless they've already done sex work, are over 25, and are coming at it from a place "of clarity and good intentions." She added that it should be a decision made "from a place of agency and bodily autonomy," rather than "'I need to do this because I want to live this lifestyle."