To be influential online is to confront difficult questions about self-presentation, public judgment, freedom of speech, power and money. Over the last decade or so, Mia Khalifa has been forced to try to find some answers.
In 2014, when Khalifa, who was born in Lebanon and raised Catholic in the Washington area, was 21 and working in the adult-film industry, she performed in a sexually explicit scene while wearing a hijab. That scene went viral, and the response was harsh. There were even death threats, including a photoshopped image of her being beheaded by the Islamic State. The vitriol was part of what caused Khalifa to leave the adult-film industry and try to return to anonymity. She couldn’t. Her digital mistake was destined to follow her around.
So a few years ago, Khalifa decided that rather than pretend her past didn’t exist, she could leverage it. She gradually turned herself into a tremendously popular social media influencer, albeit one with a lingering aura of transgression. Khalifa now has millions of accounts following her on X, TikTok and Instagram, where she posts about style, food and, frequently, politics. She has also built a lucrative and impressive audience on OnlyFans, an online platform where subscribers can pay performers directly for content, some of which is fairly innocuous and much of which, including Khalifa’s, is, let’s say, risqué.
I was dimly aware of the controversy surrounding Khalifa back in 2014 and was surprised in recent years to see her popping up here and there — on unofficial online lists of top OnlyFans earners, in a cameo on the great Hulu series “Ramy” and in passing coverage of her jewelry brand, Sheytan. Then last year I saw her name again, this time attached to news stories about her glib and inflammatory tweets following Hamas’s terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
How did the person I heard about a decade ago turn into the Mia Khalifa of today? That reinvention is part of what I wanted to talk with her about, along with her experience in the sex-work industry and the potential cost to the head and heart of living so unabashedly online.
I’ve seen you talk about the idea that you’re in the middle of a rebranding. But I haven’t seen you talk about what you think your brand was. Can you fill that in for me? My brand at the beginning wasn’t something that was much in my control. 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. 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.
How did it become clear that you couldn’t go back to normal life? 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. 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.
So when we talk about what your brand was, we just mean how people knew you? Yes. The brand that they formed in their head. There was no purposeful intention behind that. Where I am now mentally, emotionally, on every level, is a complete 180 from who I was. That’s my brand: evolution.
You have somewhere in the neighborhood of six million followers on X, 26 million on Instagram and 38 million on TikTok. How do you reinforce your brand on each of those platforms? That’s a good question because I believe you have to be different on every platform. TikTok is more for fun music and silly videos, and Twitter [now called X] is my favorite app. It’s where I get all of my news. It’s very much about activism and jokes.
But your moneymaker is OnlyFans? Yes.
Do you feel as if there’s any tension or anything to reconcile in the fact that you make your money on this one platform that I assume is predominantly men, and it seems as if your interests and your followers on these other platforms are women? Not necessarily because the way that I’m on the platform is a way that’s true to myself and makes me feel comfortable with being on it. I do not like catering to the male audience even though it might seem like I do. Just because I look a certain way in a bikini does not necessarily mean it’s not for the girls. I don’t do nudity past what I’ve done in a fashion magazine, which is like a see-through shirt or something. So I feel secure, and the audience that I’ve cultivated on that platform knows what they’re in for. I don’t have trouble with that. I have more trouble with making sure that I’m not promoting it as a platform that is an answer to women who are looking for easy money. I have a responsibility to not promote it as something that any woman should join unless they’ve already been in the sex-work industry, unless they’re over 25, their frontal cortex is formed, unless they’re coming at it from a place that’s not — I don’t want to use the word “desperate,” but from a place of clarity and good intentions.
And agency maybe? Exactly. From a place of agency and bodily autonomy. Not from a place of, I need to do this because I want to live this lifestyle.
Is it fair to categorize OnlyFans as sex work? It is, and I feel like people who get insulted by that feel ashamed of being lumped in with sex workers.
Your experience on OnlyFans has been one of agency and control. But you’ve also spoken out about the dangers of sex work. Is it difficult to thread the needle between talking about what the potential harms of that industry are while also not further stigmatizing people who work in it? Very. I get a lot of backlash from women in the industry for that reason actually. I don’t care if another girl is getting mad at me because I’m stigmatizing something. It is contradictory of me to be on something and tell other people, no, don’t join. But I’m not saying don’t join. I’m saying don’t join so young, don’t join as an answer to all of your problems. Just don’t do something you could regret. The internet is forever.
I was watching a talk you gave at the Oxford Union, and during the audience question-and-answer a young woman stood up and — I’m paraphrasing — referred to you as a feminist icon. How does feminism manifest itself in your work? That’s a good question because I feel so much impostor syndrome around being called that.
Why? Because I had so much internalized misogyny that I had to work through, and I feel like that didn’t start until I started my therapy journey at 26. I am so ashamed of the things that I’ve said and thought about myself and allowed others to say and jokes that I went along with or contributed to about myself or about other women. So it’s been an evolution. But on the OnlyFans platform, [the feminism] is my boundaries, the way I enforce them. If someone says a word or describes a body part in a way that’s more crude than I’ll accept, they get blocked. On Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, I hope that it manifests in the things that I talk about and spotlight, like women’s reproductive rights and anti-sex-trafficking efforts.
You referred to internalized misogyny. What are the aspects of growing up or the culture you were raised in that you’re still working through? The internalized misogyny actually came more from the American influences. It was not being comfortable as a woman in brown skin and as an Arab woman. I grew up in D.C. in a post-9/11 world, and there was a lot of blatant racism, and I started to hate myself. I started to try and fit myself into the “white” category. Like, No, I’m wearing Brooks Brothers and Sperrys. I’m not brown. I’m not Arab. I would join in on jokes against women. I would put myself down to fit into places that I shouldn’t have been trying to fit into. I carry a lot of shame about that.
You’re Lebanese. This is a difficult moment for Lebanese people — the violence is escalating. Do you have friends and family there? I do. Thankfully they’re in the position where they’re taking in refugees and people who aren’t able to cross the borders. They’re able to open their doors and give them a place to stay, and that’s the best you can hope for, for the situation in Lebanon right now.
You’ve talked in the context of politics about wanting to make a difference. How do you think you’re able to? It’s really just normalizing it. Making people see that it’s not taboo to talk about it.
Talk about what? To talk about ending the genocide, to talk about a cease-fire, to talk about anti-abortion, to talk about any of these things. It’s not taboo. It’s not: Oh, you’re an influencer, just do your job. Oh, you’re an athlete, keep politics out. It’s not taboo to have an opinion. In fact, you are an NPC if you don’t have an opinion — a nonplayable character. You’re a robot. You do not exist. If you have no interest in contributing to the fight for human rights or basic rights, domestically or internationally, what are you good for? Pharrell [Williams] saying I don’t think celebrities should have opinions on politics? Please.
This is a difficult set of subjects to talk about. I don’t feel my role here is to condone ideas that you might have or rebut them. “Her points of view are not mine.”
But I’m thinking about how on Oct. 7 of last year you posted on X suggesting the “freedom fighters” in Gaza should flip their phones to horizontal in order to film better. Yeah.
And there was another post of yours on X around the same time where it looked as if there were Hamas militants shooting into an Israeli police car. As a result of those posts, some companies decided to stop doing business with you. I also want to add that you’ve said that while you’re anti-Zionist, you’re in no way anti-Judaism. No, and it’s very important to not say Jewish people when talking about Zionists.
To my mind those posts didn’t meet the moral tenor of the moment. I’m not asking you to defend or explain them, but the question I have is whether your experience with those posts and the reaction they engendered made you think differently about the kinds of posts you want to make about Gaza or about politics? Or really what value you can bring to these conversations? If you’ll allow me, I would like a chance to talk about those tweets. The first one was not — the reason I had said that was because there was a scene that was really poetic and symbolic and beautiful. There was this one scene where a fence was being broken down, and it was civilians, it was children — it felt like the Berlin Wall coming down. That’s what the scene looked like. And that’s why I said “freedom fighters,” because every Palestinian who still has the will to live is a freedom fighter. That’s what it was in reference to. The other one, the photo, it just felt so baroque.
You referred to it as looking like a “Renaissance painting.” Exactly. The composition, everything about it — at the time it was too soon. But I feel like that’s not a radical thing to say about something that looks so — it looked crazy. But, yeah, it was too soon. That’s where I stand on that, and all of the business that I lost because of it was extremely welcomed because if we really disagree at that level, we shouldn’t be working together in the first place. So I’m not angry about it. I’m actually grateful for it. This was the part that I regret the most: It was my intention being so misconstrued that people who were close to me reached out and were deeply hurt by what I had said.
How did they explain their hurt? The same as other people. I cannot believe that you would say something this violently fueled. And having to go back and explain my intention and apologizing for hurting them and really just making sure that they understand who I am as a person.
Did that experience change how you think about what to post or when? Yes, completely. Because that was a distraction. That’s not how I want any of my activism to be. That focused it on me. And also, as people of color, whether we’re fighting for Black Lives Matter or a free Palestine or a free Congo, whatever it may be, we have no room for error. I have to put a lot more thought into what I say, and I have to make sure that context is always there.
You’ll post a playful food video on TikTok and then a strident set of tweets about Gaza. Do you have a sense of whether the person who is following you on TikTok is paying attention to the political tweets? Is it a mishmash in people’s heads? Is it a mishmash in your head? Thank you so much for being able to see that that is representative of the chaos in my head. It’s absolutely chaos.
Are there any things you feel could be too dangerous to your brand to talk about? Oh, no. I’m so grateful that my brand as a public figure is completely different from my actual brand as a business owner and a designer.
Is it? Actually — no. It’s not. That question — the more I tried to answer, the more my own mind changed. Because that’s actually something I’m proud of: My brand, Sheytan, is first and foremost a jewelry brand and a bodywear brand, and the thing that I love about it is that we have no investors. It’s all me. It’s self-funded, which means I answer to nobody. No one is going to take it away from me because they disagree with my opinions. Same with the production company that I’ve started. People can choose not to work with me, but no one can take it away from me because they disagree with my opinions.
What is the production company going to work on? For now, unscripted. But I’m not against entering the world of scripted. I’ve dabbled in it.
You were in “Ramy.” I was. I love Ramy [Youssef] so much. The work that he does is so inspirational and so incredible. Just that show alone — it makes me want to cry thinking about it. If I had had a show like that when I was a teenager, I think that things would have been different. Having representation in seats at tables that you never thought were possible makes such a big difference. Which is why it’s important to put myself in those positions because people need representation. I’m not just talking about Arab girls. I’m talking about girls who have made decisions that they regret, that the world might have written them off for.
You know, a theme in some of the things you’ve talked about is agency and bodily autonomy. You’ve been open online about having surgery to augment your appearance and being on Ozempic. Do the choices to do those things also feel as if they’re coming from a place of agency and bodily autonomy? Is there any internal conflict there? Not at all, and the reason that I talk about it is because I like showing the dichotomy behind changing yourself. When I got my rhinoplasty, I needed to make a point of making sure that my nose stays ethnic. I want to tweak what I don’t like about it, but I still want a strong, beautiful Arabic nose. It’s about improving what you want to improve. Same with my breast augmentation. I had lost 60, 75 pounds very naturally when I was in my early 20s, and my breasts completely changed. I didn’t feel like a young woman. I felt it was just a lot of excess skin. So that was my reasoning behind that. And then Ozempic, honestly, was such a big trend, and I wanted to try it. My negative relationship with food: It completely changed that. So I started to speak openly about that because I was getting a lot of compliments about how good I looked and my “workout routine,” and I felt guilty perpetuating something that wasn’t real.
And how does your mental health feel now? I feel like I’m really good at compartmentalizing. I’m having this beautiful conversation with you, and my tone is light, but I have Al Jazeera muted with my eyes glued to it. All of this is playing out in real time, but I’ve learned to compartmentalize. I have two more meetings after this today, and then I’m allowed my allotted time to cry.
This interview has been edited and condensed from two conversations. Listen to and follow “The Interview” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, iHeartRadio, Amazon Music or the New York Times Audio app.
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