Mia Khalifa recalls 'most toxic and uncharacteristic' 3 months as porn star, trolled for berating sex workers
Mia Khalifa recently faced backlash for recounting her traumatizing experience working in the porn industry years back for three months.
Trying to demonstrate how emotionless and lifeless she had become while working in the adult film industry, Mia posted a TikTok video in which she is seen wearing a dressing robe and sitting with a blank expression on her face as she stared into a distance. She has the same expression while opening her fridge and cleaning her mirror. All this while bright lights keep flashing around her and upbeat music plays in the video.
She captioned the video: "It is what it was." You can see the video here.
A text in the video said: "That hourly dissociative attack from remembering hundreds of millions of people’s only impression of you is solely based on the lowest, most toxic, most uncharacteristic 3 months of your life when you were 21."
Mia, who currently works as a sports commentator and a social media influencer, has often been vocal about the horror she had to face in the porn industry and all that she lost because of working in it. She has previously revealed that "her family received death threats because of her occupation", they proceeded to sever all links with her, her relationship with her husband has had to suffer due to her work and she is worried about the future of her kids. Despite the courage to speak the truth after quitting the industry in 2015, she has often been slammed by social media users for painting the industry in a "bad light." For her latest post, she was accused of trying to berate sex workers.
"How the f**k does @miakhalifa trend every time she whines about porn... girl if ur that upset about it close down ur porn sites, have your content removed, change ur name. Stop trying to paint a bad light on the industry cause for some goddamn reason the world only listens to you. If you’re so tired of people seeing u that way then maybe stop bringing it up? Stop acting like the porn industry is a horrible and disgusting place because u chose to do it," one user commented.
As a reply to that user, Mia wrote: "I’m not sure who’s more naive: Me for signing my life away to exploiters, or you for thinking I own any of the rights to the content? I have zero control over it and have been fighting for years to figure out a way to get it taken down."
Another user said: " Hmm I see Mia Khalifa is trending. Good time to remind everyone: sex work is work. I'd rather live in a society with porn performers and other sex workers treated as honorable and normal people than the one we have now, which takes advantage of them and trashes them." Mia clarified: "I’m not against sex work. I’m against the way the sex workers are treated, especially the young ones who want their lives back years down the line."
She also addressed a tweet by radio host Drew Garabo, who claimed that Mia was the only adult film actress with whom he had a "bad encounter" while interviewing her. "I have a lot of unpacked trauma revolving around my shame. And when I went on your show I felt everything I’ve worked for to try and be taken seriously in sports threatened, and my fight or flight said 'def don’t be mellow. Anything but mellow. GO!' I’m sorry," Mia said.
In a recent interview with Hero Magazine, Mia said: "I want people to know that I’m much more than who I used to be, for a few months of my life. (By doing porn), unfortunately, I shot myself in the foot, and I’m never going to be able to have a career that’s not in the public eye."