It appears that a short-lived porn career has left Mia Khalifa with a sizeable degree of internet fame, but quite little cash.
The adult actress-turned-media personality has revealed how much she made as a porn star, tweeting on Monday:
“People think I’m racking in millions from porn. Completely untrue. I made a TOTAL of around $12,000 in the industry and never saw a penny again after that.”
Her revelation that each scene only paid her around $1,000 left many people wondering why she did not count the fame and notoriety she earned and later used to her benefit.
But Khalifa replied that her point was simply to address popular misconceptions about the industry, including how much the actresses make.
“To clarify, I was never promised ‘millions’, nor do I expect it,” she wrote. “I’m just clarifying common misconceptions about me, and in turn, about the industry.”
“I was involved in porn so briefly, but my actions spread like wildfire, and I continue to be ranked (truly baffles me) 5 years after leaving the industry. This is why people think I still perform.”
Born in Beirut, Lebanon, Khalifa moved to the United States as a child in 2000. She performed in adult films for three months in late 2014 – early 2015. She rapidly emerged as one of the biggest names in the industry, largely due to a scene where she had sex wearing a hijab – something that earned her fame in both in the US and the Arab world, and even prompted death threats from Islamist terrorists.
“That is when ISIS [Daesh]* death threats came in, all of the news broke out... globally,” she said in an interview with life coach Megan Abbott. “Not just in America. It was trending on Twitter, it was all over the news.”
According to the 26-year-old internet star, terrorists once sent her a picture doctored to make it look like she was beheaded.
She added: "I was banned from a handful of countries… Egypt… Afghanistan… Very Muslim countries were deeply offended by it, and I’m Catholic.”
Khalifa recalled how after the hijab-wearing scene was released, her social media footprint began to grow quickly. “I went from 400 followers on Instagram to like 200,000 in the span of three days and then it just kept snowballing until I was at 2 million like 6 months later.”
Negative attention to her persona forced Khalifa to quit the industry in 2015, and she said getting a job post-porn wasn’t easy.
She cut her hair and dressed “extremely frumpy” so as not to be recognised in public places but that wouldn’t help. “I will be in the baggiest clothes with my hair in a bun and sunglasses on, walking down the street and a passing car will still yell out their window,” she recounted.
The woman worked in Miami as a paralegal for an insurance defence firm and a bookkeeper for a construction general contracting firm, and a webcam model, but eventually decided to move to Austin, Texas to pursue a career in sports.
Earlier this year, Khalifa became engaged to Swedish chief Robert Sandberg, and is currently working as a sports presenter, but her legacy keeps living. Last year, she was still the second most searched-for person on PornHub.
*Daesh (aka ISIS/IS/Islamic State) is a terror group outlawed in Russia and many other countries.