Mia Khalifa Teen

Mia Khalifa Teen
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October 14, 2021, 10:01 PM · 6 min read
Mia Khalifa. (Photo: Instagram @miakhalifa)
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When Mia Khalifa, 28, looks back at her younger self, she sees a woman who was struggling with confidence.
“I was looking to other people to put value on myself. I was looking for validation in every crevice that I could, without actually doing internal work,” Khalifa tells Yahoo Life.
At 21, Khalifa spent three months in the adult film industry — starring in 12 films that today have garnered more than a billion views on Pornhub. Her ascent in the industry was quick, and featured a controversial video in which she wore a hijab during a scene. Death threats from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria followed, and Khalifa decided to exit the industry. She now refers to that period of her life as a “lapse in judgment” that was never meant to last.
“I was naive, vulnerable, and malleable. Very easily talked into things, especially if it was by a man,” she says.
Now Khalifa is speaking out about her experience in the adult film industry and the path that led her there. The influencer and content creator is vocal about the exploitation she experienced and hopes her story can shield other women from going through the same. “What I can take away from this is protecting other women and being a cautionary tale,” says Khalifa.
Born in Lebanon, Khalifa and her family moved to the United States in 2001. They settled in Montgomery County, Md., where Khalifa says she struggled with fitting in, especially after the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
“I tried so hard to be white for so long,” she says. “All of these little red flags that led to internalized racism, which I did not work through until I went into therapy at age 25. Growing up in an area like that was difficult for someone who was Middle Eastern. America's views on Middle Eastern people changed completely after 9/11.”
High school was tough for Khalifa, who lacked confidence and battled low self-esteem. “I was overweight and I didn't really have very many friends. I didn't look like everyone else who was around me and that led me into a relationship that I should not have entered. And those were the steps that led me to the adult industry.”
Khalifa made just $1,000 per scene, or $12,000 total, for the films she starred in. Today those videos have earned millions of dollars, but due to the contract she signed, Khalifa makes no money on the backend. She also has no ownership of the videos and images that exist of her online — content that she is fighting to have removed.
“I don't think anyone who doesn't have a legal background fully understands what those contracts say. There's so much jargon and there are so many loopholes and just roundabout ways of expressing things, that it's predatory, to say the least,” says Khalifa.
“It makes me feel infuriated because it's so out of my control. There's only so much fight I want to put into it without also sacrificing my mental health, but it's also not something I'll ever fully give up on because that's basically like putting the nail in my own coffin.”
One way that Khalifa has reclaimed her power is by controlling her own image and brand on social media. She currently has more than 53 million followers combined on Instagram and TikTok, and says that connecting with other women who have been exploited online has made her feel more empowered.
“TikTok has been better than therapy. The women who tell their stories, who are brave enough to put their face on the internet and share their experiences, that is where my confidence comes from,” says Khalifa. “That's been the biggest key to battling with my own shame — seeing all of these women who have been through things that are a lot worse than I have and come out, like, fighting, with skin under their nails."
In August 2020, after the explosion in Beirut, Khalifa decided to auction off her glasses to raise money for the Lebanese Red Cross . The $100,000 bid from the auction eventually fell through, and to make good on her commitment and raise money, Khalifa launched an account on OnlyFans — the social media service through which content creators receive money from their subscribers or “fans." While it features users from all walks of life, OnlyFans has become known as a safe space for sex workers to post nude or risqué photos and videos.
In the end, she was able to donate more than $160,000 to the Red Cross, and felt encouraged by the potential impact of her new platform.
“I needed to get it to [the Lebanese Red Cross] by any means, and a lot of people had opinions about where the money came from," explains Khalifa, "but I think it doesn't matter where the money is coming from. I needed to get it to [them]."
OnlyFans has not only been profitable for Khalifa, but also allows her to retain ownership of the content she creates. “It's really about the accessibility to just ending it all if I ever feel like it. I love that control," she says.
“What's different about OnlyFans is there's so much more of a connection to the fans. I trust the people who I'm sending my content out to, to the point where even if it leaks, I'm not too worried about it because I'm proud of what I'm putting out there.”
The platform has been good for Khalifa, but she's aware of the impact it can have on young girls, especially those struggling with self-esteem or the pressure to meet impossible beauty standards.
“Don't groom young women on the internet. Like it's not all glam and rainbows and a great time and celebrity status immediately and empowerment. There's a lot more behind it, and it shouldn't be a light decision that you make to go into sex work,” she stresses.
Feeling shame about her past is something that Khalifa carries every day. She can’t go back, she can’t change her path, but she’s engaging in the personal work to learn and grow. She says she's inspired by content creators like BeirutbyDyke , TaniaSafi , Medea.Azouri , MyriamBulous and AsinjustAndrea — people living in Beirut who are fighting to empower women in the Middle East. Their activism inspires Khalifa to keep moving forward.
“Pictures of my butt and cute photos are not what matters, but it's what my fans like, and that helps generate more people,” says Khalifa. “If I can shed light on the things that matter to me and the things that we should be paying attention to in the world, that is my responsibility. I don't deserve a platform if that's not what I'm doing.”
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By most metrics, 21-year-old Mia Khalifa (not her real name) is doing pretty well for herself. She's educated, has a job that pays well and is successful in her field.
She's a daughter anyone could be proud of. Except Khalifa's parents aren't proud of her. They're embarrassed, she says, because her job, which pays well enough to support her at the age of 21, is in porn. And Khalifa is not just any porn star—she was recently ranked the most popular actress on Pornhub.com, the 71st most-visited website in the world, according to the web traffic analytics firm Alexa (for comparison, cnn.com ranks 73rd and nytimes.com ranks 97th). On average, every day, millions of people around the world see Khalifa's face—and other parts of her, as well.
Born in Beirut, her parents moved to Montgomery County in Maryland when she was around 10 years old. She has a B.A. in history from the University of Texas at El Paso. Based in Miami, she has her own place at a time when one in four people her age live with their parents (who also live with their parents).
For Khalifa's Lebanese immigrant parents, pornography is not an acceptable way to make a living. And in recent weeks, the debate over her career choice has expanded beyond a family disagreementtoa national conversation in Lebanon about the roles of pornography and the Internet.
By her own admission, Khalifa isn't very interested in Lebanese politics. "I don't want us to be bullied by Syria or Israel, but I'm pretty indifferent towards it," she said in an interview with Newsweek . But she isn't shy about repping her Lebanese heritage on social media, either. On her left arm is a tattoo of the opening lines of Lebanese national anthem: كلنـا للوطـن للعـلى للعـلم (translation: All of us! For our Country, for our Flag and Glory! ). On her right wrist is a tattoo of the Lebanese Forces Cross, the symbol of a Lebanese conservative Christian political party opposed to the Syrian Bashar Assad regime. Her father is a Lebanese Forces supporter, she says. She got the cross on her wrist two years ago, after the October 2012 Beirut bombing, in support of her father, "to show him, 'I'm on your side.'"
Both tattoos have generated controversy in Lebanon. Her critics say she's shaming her country by appearing in porn with the Lebanese national anthem tattooed on her body, she says. "They're embarrassed I'm 'claiming' them—as if I had a choice. I was born there."
Lebanon, a country of just under 5 million, is one of the most liberal countries in the Middle East and has the most religious diversity of any nation in the region. But it spent the years from 1975 to 1990 locked in a bloody civil war, the aftershocks of which are reflected in the polarized political landscape of today. In recent years it has been plagued by political deadlock, such as when it spent 10 months in 2013 and 2014 without a government because its conservative and liberal coalitions could not come to an agreement.
Khalifa's conservative parents, meanwhile, have denounced her to the Lebanese media, she says. "No one in my family is speaking to me," Khalifa says. She describes her parents as "extremely strict, overbearing, and very conservative—they assimilated to American culture by latching on to the Republican party."
Few parents are happy to learn their child has elected to pursue a career in pornography. Most come around after a few weeks, Khalifa says. But what happens when your career becomes the subject of national debate? "It's blown up on such a huge scale," she says, attracting coverage in Lebanon and in Lebanese news channels in the U.S. "Everybody from my second cousins to family friends to my parents' friends know…it's not something that's going to be forgiven."
Khalifa says she feels guilty that her family has been caught up in the controversy. "I've dragged their name through the mud," she says. "I feel guilty for dragging them into this and having all their friends know now that it's on Lebanese media. But that was never my intention."
Various pundits and commentators have latched onto Khalifa as a talking point in the ongoing debate over pornography and the Internet in Lebanon. According to the Lebanese Examiner , several Beirut-based newspapers printed unfavorable articles about Khalifa. She responded on Twitter.
Others, like British-Lebanese author Nasri Atallah, came to her defense. "The moral indignation about Mia Khalifa, presumably the first Lebanese porn star, is wrong for two reasons," he wrote on Facebook . "First and foremost, as a woman, she is free to do as she pleases with her body. Secondly, as a sentient human being with agency, who lives halfway across the world, she is in charge of her own life and owes absolutely nothing to the country where she happened to be born. There is this odd perception that being Lebanese is a vocation and a duty first and that your personal life comes second."
Lebanon's Internet, while slow (only Beirut has 4G), is generally not restricted, according to a 2014 report by the international watchdog organization Freedom House. But that may be changing. In September, the country's Telecommunications Ministry ordered Internet service providers to block access to six pornographic websites for reasons of "societal decency." Khalifa suspects the new, intense focus on her may be related. "I think that's why they're latching on to me. They're using me as a tool," she says.
Most of the hatred Khalifa gets on social media comes from Lebanese men who have seen her movies, she says. Death threats are not uncommon.
Conversely, most of the support that comes her way on social media comes from Egypt, she says.
Khalifa says she doesn't plan on staying in porn forever: "It's not something I'd make a career out of, but I'll ride it out 'til I can't do it anymore." Until then, she just wishes the media would leave her family alone. Asked if her career was worth losing her family, she said she wasn't sure. "I can't say it's worth it," she says. "But I can't self-pity, because I consciously made this decision myself."

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