Playboy has ended its partnership with influencer Mia Khalifa after accusing her of making “disgusting and reprehensible comments” about the Hamas attacks in Israel which saw hundreds of civilians slaughtered.
The Lebanese-American former porn star, 30, has posted several times since the unrest began on Saturday when Palestinian militants crossed from Gaza into Israel and began killing and abducting Israelis. Her comments, which have provoked an angry backlash online, have variously expressed solidarity with Palestine generally but also contained dark, glib remarks about the horrific videos emerging from the slaughter.
In an email to users of Playboy’s Centerfold—a platform similar to OnlyFans which connects content creators with fans—Playboy said it would no longer be working with Khalifa, who joined the site last year.
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“We are writing today to let you know of our decision to terminate Playboy’s relationship with Mia Khalifa, including deleting Mia’s Playboy channel on our creator platform,” the company wrote, according to the Daily Mail. As of Tuesday morning, her page appears to have been taken down.
“Over the past few days, Mia has made disgusting 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 for hate speech. We expect Mia to understand that her words and actions have consequences.”
In the hours after the invasion began, Khalifa started posting about the events in Israel to her 5.6 million followers on X (formerly Twitter). “If you can look at the situation in Palestine and not be on the side of Palestinians, then you are on the wrong side of apartheid and history will show that in time,” one of her first posts read.
Later on Saturday, as disturbing videos of the terror began emerging online, Khalifa wrote: “Can someone please tell the freedom fighters in Palestine to flip their phones and film horizontal.” The same day, she followed up with: “I can’t believe the Zionist apartheid regime is being brought down by guerrilla fighters in fake Gucci shirts - the biopics of these moments better reflect that.”
She later said of her post about filming horizontally that the “statement in no way shape or form is enticing spread of violence, I specifically said freedom fighters because that’s what the Palestinian citizens are… fighting for freedom every day.”
But Todd Shapiro—a former broadcaster who set up Red Light Holland, a mushroom company, which had engaged Khalifa as an advisor earlier this year—replied to her original post to say it was “such a horrendous tweet.” “Consider yourself fired effective immediately,” Shapiro wrote. “Simply disgusting. Beyond disgusting. Please evolve and become a better human being.”
“I just wanna make sure there’s 4k footage of my people breaking down the walls of the open air prison they’ve been forced out of their homes and into so we have good options for the history books that write about how how [sic] they freed themselves from apartheid,” Khalifa wrote in response. “Please worry about your sad little company lacking direction and purpose before you utter my name again,” she wrote, adding that the business should “do your research before begging for my investment in your little project, I’m from LEBANON, are you insane for expecting me to be on the side of colonialism you fucking weirdo.”
