Playboy has ended its partnership with influencer Mia Khalifa after accusing her of making “disgusting and reprehensible comments” about the Hamas attacks in Israel that slaughtered hundreds of civilians.
The Lebanese-American former porn star, 30, has posted several posts since the unrest began on Saturday, when Palestinian militants crossed into Israel from Gaza and began killing and kidnapping Israelis. Her comments, which sparked an angry backlash online, expressed solidarity with Palestine in general in various ways, but also included dark, superficial remarks about the horrific videos that emerged from the massacre.
In an email to users of Playboy’s Centerfold – a platform similar to OnlyFans that connects content creators with fans – Playboy said it would no longer work with Khalifa, who joined the site last year.
“We are writing to you today to inform you of our decision to terminate the relationship between Playboy and Mia Khalifa, including the deletion of Mia’s Playboy channel on our Creator platform,” the company wrote, according to the Chron. As of Tuesday morning, her page appears to have been deleted.
“Over the past few days, Mia has made vile and reprehensible comments celebrating Hamas’ attacks on Israel and the murder of innocent men, women and children,” the email continued. “At Playboy, we encourage free expression and constructive political debate, but we have a zero-tolerance policy toward hate speech. We expect Mia to understand that her words and actions have consequences.”
In the hours after the invasion began, Khalifa began posting about events in Israel to her 5.6 million followers on X (formerly Twitter). “If you look at the situation in Palestine and are not on the side of the Palestinians, then you are on the wrong side of apartheid and history will show that in time,” was one of her first posts.
Later on Saturday, as disturbing videos of terror emerged online, Khalifa wrote: “Can someone please tell the freedom fighters in Palestine to turn their phones around and film horizontally?” The same day she added: “I can’t believe this Zionist apartheid regimes are overthrown by guerrilla fighters in fake Gucci shirts – the biographies of these moments reflect that better.”
She later said of her post about horizontal filming that “the statement in no way incites violence, I specifically said freedom fighters because these are the Palestinian citizens who fight for freedom every day.”
But Todd Shapiro — a former broadcaster who founded Red Light Holland, a mushroom company that hired Khalifa as a consultant earlier this year — responded to her original post by saying it was “such a terrible tweet.” “Consider yourself fired effective immediately,” Shapiro wrote. “Just disgusting. Beyond disgusting. Please evolve and become a better person.”
“I just want to make sure there is 4K footage of my people tearing down the walls of the open-air prison they were forced out of their homes into so we have good options for the history books that write about how [sic] They liberated themselves from apartheid,” Khalifa wrote in response. “Please worry that your sad little business lacks direction and purpose before you say my name again,” she wrote, adding that the company “should do your research before pursuing my investment in you.” small project begs. “I’m from LEBANON, aren’t I?” It’s crazy to expect me to be on the side of colonialism, you damn weirdo.”