Meet Mia Khalifa (NSFW). She’s a 21-year-old Florida State Seminoles fan and an adult performer based in Miami, Fla.
Recently, the Lebanese-born porn star was voted the most-searched-for porn star on Pornhub, outranking longtime favorite Lisa Ann—a watershed moment in any adult performer’s career.
But Khalifa’s victory has been marred by death threats she’s been receiving on Twitter. Much, but by no means all, of the harassment is from fundamentalist Muslims in her home country of Lebanon.
Khalifa has been the target of such invective as this:
@miakhalifa You are a disgrace to the Arabs and the country of Lebanon :D
— Hussein Yusuf (@husseinyusuf74) January 6, 2015
And this:
https://twitter.com/hala_ibrahim23/status/552298163995181056
And this:
Much of the criticism (if you can call it that) appears to stem from Khalifa appearing in some of her videos wearing a hijab, which many on Twitter view as disrespectful. Others take issue with her for having a tattoo on her arm that reads “Koullouna lil-watan, lil’oula lil-’alam,” the first line of the Lebanese national anthem.
Thankfully, Khalifa appears to be taking the harassment in stride, if her Twitter is any indication:
Doesn't the Middle East have more important things to worry about besides me? How about finding a president? Or containing ISIS?
— Mia K. (@miakhalifa) January 3, 2015
She also appears to have a sense of humor about it:
After a long day of death threats, coming home to my xmas gift to myself turns the entire day around 😍 @TheMissAP pic.twitter.com/a1Qd8xNhMC
— Mia K. (@miakhalifa) January 5, 2015
Enjoy the gift, Mia. And here’s looking forward to a day when women won’t receive beheading threats from strangers on the Internet, just for taking their clothes off.
Update: According to Pornhub Vice-President Corey Price, there have been 200,000 searches for Mia Khalifa since her first BangBros feature, “Look Who’s Cumming to Dinner,” was released: “People seemed to immediately respond to it and her,” he told the Daily Dot via e-mail. Her name has since been searched for more than 500,oo0 times.
Price attributes her rapid rise to fame to her wearing a hijab in her videos: “[It’s] definitely something different, which may be why she’s receiving both positive and negative attention,” he wrote. Hijab porn in general tends to have “a very small number of searches.”
H/T Daily Mail | Photo via Mia Khalifa/Twitter