Contrary to what her popularity suggests, former adult film star Mia Khalifa says she only made $12,000 during her career in the adult film industry. Khalifa tweeted, “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. Difficulty finding a normal job after quitting porn was scary.”
“To clarify, I was never promised “millions”, nor do I expect it. I’m just clarifying common misconceptions about me, and in turn, about the industry,” she added.
“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,” she wrote.
Khalifa shot to fame in 2014 after appearing in an adult film featuring a controversial scene in which she wore a hijab. Vice reports that though her career lasted a brief three months, she continues to be one of the most searched for actors on adult film sites. In an interview with Megan Abbot, a link to which she posted in her tweet, she claimed that she began to get death threats from ISIS after the scene went viral. “The day after the scene dropped is when everything blew up. 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 two million like six months later. It just kept growing, and growing, and growing – and then my Instagram account was hacked by ISIS,” she said.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)