The Mia Khalifa roller coaster continues! First, the retired adult performer started repudiating the adult film industry by implying she’d hardly earned any money for her very short time in porn. Then, over the past few months, she went big with her grudge against BangBros and instigated a still-ongoing feud with the porn giant. During that time, her fans started a petition to have her 2014 porn videos removed from the internet—which is nearing 200K signatures. Now, the social media influencer and sports commentator has made an apparent about-face by joining adult content platform OnlyFans.
On September 17, she posted to her 21.7 million Instagram followers a photo of herself working while eating sushi with the caption, “I have a full time job… as an accountant.” Slyly featured on her laptop screen, hardly visible, was her just-launched OnlyFans account.
And the internet exploded.
Her fans were flabbergasted—Khalifa, who has spent the past year lambasting the industry that spawned her fame, seemed to have pulled a complete switcheroo. An OnlyFans account from the woman who wrote on her Instagram last year, “Those 11 videos will haunt me until I die, and I don’t want another girl to go through that – because no one should…Long story short: don’t do porn”?
Adult industry insider Kelli Roberts tweeted, “I just heard that Mia Khalifa started on OnlyFans. WTF? I thought she hated the adult industry.”
And Twitter user private captain sparrow tweeted: “The inherent irony of Mia Khalifa opening up an OnlyFans account considering she wanted all her porn removed off the internet a month ago is astounding.”
The commentary certainly didn’t end there, as Khalifa’s millions of fans and haters alike scratched their heads over whether they’d been collectively taken for a ride. And it’s easy to see where the confusion comes from. Does Mia Khalifa love porn or hate it? The answer seemed unclear.
I just heard that Mia Khalifa started on OnlyFans. WTF? I thought she hated the adult industry.
— Kelli Roberts (@MissKelliXXX) September 21, 2020
But it’s worth looking more closely into Khalifa’s motivations, because her choice of OnlyFans as an outlet for her erotic content is telling. In an early post on the adult-friendly platform, she wrote: “I am finally growing into my self-confidence in who I am and the decisions I make for me, and this is my way of being myself outside the perimeters of conventional social media.” She continued, “I want to take my power back and just post what I want and what makes me feel good.” And, it’s important to note, she also wrote, “I will not be creating nude content.”
So, while many are calling her out for being a hypocrite, it appears she’s not doubling back quite as much as they believe. Not only is she not using OnlyFans to go back to explicit porn (at least for now), but she’s using the platform as a way to reclaim her control over her own image.
Mia Khalifa did not cease to be a sexual person who enjoys being sexy on the internet the moment she quit working in mainstream porn. Sure, she’s been vocal about wishing she had done things differently—or, more to the point, wishing that she had never crossed paths with BangBros. And sure, she’s said so in less-than-friendly terms, calling them exploitative and more. But even in the oft-quoted Instagram comment where she told people not to do porn, she qualified her statement: “if you do, don’t do it with a company. Do it for yourself, on your own terms” [emphasis added].
Look, OnlyFans has exploded in popularity over the past year at least in part because it grants models control over their images. They’re not required to sign binding contracts with a production company or to give up the rights to their content. Khalifa, like hundreds of thousands of other content creators on OnlyFans, will own the rights to everything she posts on the platform, and will profit directly from every $11.99 monthly subscription and tip she brings in. And that’s a far cry from the way things operated while she was contracted with BangBros (exploitation or lack thereof notwithstanding).
So, while the Mia Khalifa roller coaster may still be careening through ups and downs, and while there may be a teensy bit of hypocrisy in the air, it doesn’t appear that she’s performed an outright 360. More like a 90-degree turn that nobody saw coming.
