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“My brand at the beginning wasn’t something that was much in my control… I became infamous by accident.”
New York Times interview with the Learn more about our, Mia Khalifa From Zuckerberg to The Try Guys, we love to hate them sex work and its implications.
“My brand at the beginning wasn’t something that was much in my control,” she said. “I became infamous by accident.” Her first scene became her most notable with her posing as a “Arab veiled woman.”
“I entered the adult industry in October of 2014, and very quickly I was pressured to perform.” Despite being raised Catholic, “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.”
At the time, Khalifa was in corporate America working in a law office. So when “Every news outlet picked it up” — it being the controversial scene — “everybody had an opinion,” she said. “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.”
In September 2024, the former adult star and activist revealed the early stages of her porn career were difficult to revisit. ”I used to have a lot of trouble talking about it because I was extremely clouded by shame,” she told Louis Theroux. ”I used to have a visceral reaction to even hearing the name Mia and knowing that if someone is calling me by that name, they are seeing me in a way that I don’t want to be seen in.”
However, where most assume it’s because she finds her experience shameful, she corrects and reveals it’s just the opposite. “But that had a lot more to do with my mental health than it does about the bigger picture of things,” she continued.” To which Theroux asks, “And if you were to discourage people from going into it, what would the grounds for that be? Like why is it a bad idea, do you think?”
Using her experience in therapy as a reference she responded, “I think that nine years of therapy is a lot and it’s not because of what I went through in the industry. It’s what I had to go through to get to a total in my life where I feel like I am of a healthy state of mind to make decisions in my life.”
“When you’re 19, 20, 21 years old… you don’t know what you’re going to want for your life or what you want out of your life. You don’t even know yourself that young. You should not make life changing decisions when you’re that young.”
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