I spent a day with MIA KHALIFA

mia khalifa a controversial internet personality well known for passionately speaking out against her time in the adult film industry after recording less than a dozen videos including a particularly controversial scene that left mia receiving death threats she shifted away from the adult film industry despite this withdrawal from the industry and mia's denouncement of this content these videos have remained in circulation on various adult websites garnering billions of views to which mia sees no royalties regardless of the lack of proper financial compensation mia has been vocal about her distaste toward her stint in the industry all while successfully growing her own audience on the internet amassing over 30 million followers across multiple social media platforms my name's anthony padilla and today i'm going to be sitting down with mia khalifa to learn the truth about her story does mia khalifa embrace her past as she enjoys the immense stardom and opportunities it's brought her or has the relentless scrutiny and shame of her past pulled a dark curtain over her entire sense of self leaving her feeling shattered and isolated [Music] hello mia thank you so much for coming on and teaching me about the world of mia khalifa i feel weird not shaking your hand but like what is i don't know handshake so what do you consider yourself uh internet personality uh world renowned controversial human i consider myself trying try just trying to just keep myself afloat and do things that i like why is there so much controversy surrounding you i feel like sometimes i inadvertently place myself in the middle of controversy like sometimes i really forget that oh wow there's people who like see my tweets other than my friends and people who see my posts other than my friends and then i end up being in a social media storm everyone starts with no audience for the most part so you're learning as you go and you're like oh wait i can't treat my platform the same as i did when i first started which is a little weird for me to reconcile with because i feel like authenticity comes from not really giving up and saying whatever you want right and that's why people like you in the first place exactly so now that i kind of like try and hold back and be a little bit more politically correct and diplomatic i feel like i'm i'm losing myself a little bit so sometimes i just gotta throw a monkey wrench into everything normal and quick say something controversial oh my god wow i couldn't go oh my god she shot her pants your 25 lawyers in the back are not happy right now how old were you when you first got into the adult film industry and is there any reason in particular why you chose to partake so i was 21 years old and the reason was wrong place wrong time at many points in my life wrong mentality at many points in my life low self-esteem very low self-worth so you first got into the industry because it was like a way to boost your self-esteem i started to get positive male attention which was validating for a very short period of time and then i kind of started to chase that validation because i felt like that was the only way for me to get positive attention from men because i was so overweight growing up you you weren't expecting anyone to see it i mean like how many videos are there out there people doing sexually explicit things like billions literally billions and you're like mine's gonna be like drowned out for sure well mine are trash and there's only 11 please move on at the time how did you think your life might be affected by recording those scenes i didn't i was young like what 21 year old is thinking before they do anything that's a very rash decision right yeah i didn't even know there was a such thing as a future when i was 21. exactly all about now baby you're narcissistic you're naive everything revolves around you you know the answers to everything and that's also true for me but yeah i get it women mature a little faster than men i feel like so you didn't think the general perception of you would change at all i didn't think there would be a general perception i didn't think enough people would see it i thought it could be you know little secret that i do for a short while and you know then it just gets swept under the rug some people uh you know leave mean tweets about people in secret some people just join the adult film industry in secret like we don't think any of these things are going to amount to anything yeah and it's not so much like i was thinking i'm joining the adult industry it was more like oh i'm doing this crazy thing and you know i'm getting away with it and it's kind of fun temporarily and i'm not really thinking about long-term mental physical life effects it must have been exciting for a moment because you're like this is my own secret it's my own world yeah i mean it's like an adrenaline rush at a hundred and then you come crashing down and then you go chasing for it again which is why you know you i went back because the validation would immediately dissipate and i would be just drowning in shame and embarrassment and confusion about why i was feeling that way and i went back because i got the validation back how do you think your experience in the industry might be different than people assume i think people assume that i am just loving the success and loving everything that i've gotten because of it and they don't really understand that no i really didn't want this after i quit i went off the grid i worked two normal jobs i really tried to make normal life work again because i thought okay i got out early enough i don't yeah you know i can still salvage what's left of my life and after a year of trying to do that i realized it wasn't the case do you remember what the economics of those deals and contracts were actually like well off the videos i made twelve thousand dollars and four thousand dollars twelve thousand dollars according to my tax reports and according to my bank account at the time the other hundred and sixty thousand unaccounted for over the span of about three years is me being on salary for being a social media manager for bang bros do you feel you're appropriately compensated for the the work that you did do in particular on those scenes i do not think so but i am also not trying to get money back right it was never about the money yeah the reason i came out with a video in the first place kind of explaining how much i made is because the overwhelming majority of people truly believes that i make basically a dollar for every time a video is viewed they're like you're famous you're rich what do you got to complain about 800 million dollars just from people like viewing that's not how it works you get paid for the day and that's it you don't get any royalties you don't get anything afterwards and anything i did receive afterwards i worked for right so you were contracted by them to work for them separately from the content that you made yes after i left the industry absolutely can you tell me anything specific about the specific scene that raised so much controversy around you i went in that day not knowing what the scene was about i'm in hair and makeup and uh the two producers come in to kind of give me the rundown about what is going on in the scene today and they asked me if i can speak arabic and i tell them yes and they're like perfect we're gonna do this i was asked to wear a hijab and uh perform in a threesome with another girl as the scene and how bad did the reaction get regarding the hijab scene oh death threats most of the death threats don't come from like the in cells watching porn they come from the people who were just so mad at me for putting on a hijab and making muslims look bad yeah you literally had people claiming to be isis giving you death threats yeah sympathizers and then my instagram account at two million followers got hacked by isis sympathizers and then taken down for propaganda being posted on it that's super interesting to me that you have had people you know build whole hate campaigns surrounding you for that scene but yet the the people responsible for this get to just live high and dry and they get to continue doing it to this day can i tell you what makes me sleep peacefully at night though sure knowing that a man made an entire spear campaign against me because that's how much he fears me and the truth coming out damn you know you got power wins that what made you want to leave the adult film industry realizing i was in the adult industry what made you realize that you were part of an industry and not just like doing one-off side gigs about a few weeks into the contract they uh they had me sign to extend it once all of the news started breaking out about like with the death threats and with the hijab scene and everything like when they tried to lock me in for longer and try to pivot everything they did with me to be that controversial like middle eastern hijab like they turned the whole website into basically a landing page for isis to put people on there you know no fly into wherever they are list do you feel like you walked into a trap i feel like i was led into a trap it started way before the age of 21 but just being naive and being very vulnerable was not a good combination for meeting the person i met at the age that i was and the things that transpired after um i would say that if i had never met that person i never would have done porn i never would have done the things that people know me for doing and i could have just been living life normally making 18 an hour hopefully somewhere so i mean if you could would you trade your life now for a more modest lifestyle like that yes i would trade it in immediate like in a heartbeat yeah and on the flip side i'm very proud of how far i've come and how hard i've worked to get to where i am and all of the things that i've done against the odds to kind of distance myself from me at age 21 and i'm i am proud of that i'm i'm proud of just coming so far before we learn more about the world of mia khalifa i just want to take a quick moment to thank all of you for keeping the comments on these videos so empathetic and encouraging as i cover topics that are increasingly sensitive or controversial the guests in these videos feel comfortable sharing their deeply personal experiences i think in part due to the outpouring of love and support you're all so great at sharing and i know this sounds cliche but i can't thank you enough for being such wonderful fans of this series this episode in particular deters from my normal format with three guests but i feel like mia's story is super important and i hope this episode gives even just a small glimpse at what many people and specifically women in this industry have gone through that's all i wanted to say now back to learning about the world of mia khalifa how has being in the adult film industry even for such a brief period of time affected your day-to-day life people will grab me people will grab you not like you know at a bar setting or at a club setting i'm talking about the grocery store where i just get grabbed and come up to and they think that they own your body because they've seen your body exactly like they will follow me to my car they will grab me by my arm when i tell them no politely they'll call me or a [ __ ] or like anything in the book it's i mean it's happened in the most wholesome of places like waiting to get my passport stamped at the copenhagen airport and i'm standing there with my husband and this guy comes up to us and after i politely say no because i just got off a 15-hour flight he screamed at me that i was a [ __ ] and a [ __ ] in front of a line of about 45 people and me and my husband are just standing there with 20 people ahead of us like okay so we just gotta we just all right just don't make eye contact with anybody so he wanted to get a photo yeah and then he called you derogatory things because you said no yes they will show you respect unless they feel disrespected and a simple no is enough to make them feel disrespected they can't handle no they can't handle the word what is consent though what is it no means yes maybe cause well if that's what we're going by pretty much jesus christ has your history affected your ability to get or maintain a job or certain work so the first place that i worked at was a law firm i would either get hit on by the lawyers or they would make snide comments or people in the office would kind of get clicky or you know clients that would come in would whisper and then the second place i worked at which was a construction firm i was uh the bookkeeper and receptionist the person who took a chance on me and hired me would not be able to go to any construction site without everybody bringing up the fact that mia khalifa works in his office without like people calling into the office like contractors just to try and like talk to me on the phone yeah and i felt like a burden to someone's business that they worked so hard all their life to build up i i'll be like just about ready to sign a contract with a company and then i get an email saying oh oh it ran up the uh ran up the chain of command a little bit and we're gonna have to mix it you're not very brand safe because they googled you and they're like oh never mind like your company for shaving pubes what do you mean i'm not brand safe i understand you felt a hefty amount of shame surrounding your history [Music] has this affected your self-confidence or anything like that i feel like the shame was just very consuming and it was all i could ever think about to the point where i couldn't i couldn't be in an interview where someone said the word porn like it would just trigger me and send chills down my spine and make me just feel so embarrassed that this is why they were talking to me like this is the only thing that they're interested in this is the only thing i'll ever be worthy of being talked to about so it took a lot of therapy and a lot of self-reflection to really get down to the grit of what what is causing my shame what am i so ashamed of okay i made a mistake everyone makes mistakes um i'm embarrassed that people can see me naked and can see me at the lowest point in my life um okay a lot of people have experienced that too maybe not to this degree but they've gotten past it i i finally just realized like all right it's with me forever i just have to do enough good to bury the bad how has therapy specifically helped you kind of move on from your past and feel a little bit more confident with yourself it's just helped me accept it for so long i was internalizing and compartmentalizing to the point where i was living a life that was deluded like i was going about my life just basically getting mad at anyone who recognized me for being mia khalifa even though i was still trying to be an influencer and make a name for myself so therapy really helped me come to terms with this this doesn't have to be a bad thing like this is what you make of it and it all starts with you inside working on your mental health and making sure that you're taking care of yourself and you're reassuring yourself and you're grounding yourself so do you feel like you kind of hated a portion of you yes that's what it was i hated the part of me that was mia khalifa i hated the part of me that made those decisions right but i loved the part of me that was strong enough to overcome everything that was thrown her way and i've kind of had to balance that love-hate relationship with myself yeah to just fully accept it for all the good and bad which i have not done quite yet so do you feel like you've kind of learned to forgive that part of you that made those decisions in the past to do those things that you now regret it's partly forgiving her and partly just telling that that young girl that hey it's it's okay that these were the decisions you made because you those were survival decisions you made in that moment i noticed that you you refer to your past self your younger self in third person sometimes is that because you you're kind of like distancing yourself from your younger self to a certain degree my therapist brought that up last week really what did you say i still well he said that that's part of this dissociation by dissociative disorder when i look back on the things that were traumatic i'm looking back at them from like a like an eagle-eyed view and i feel so disconnected yeah because you're like well you've obviously grown evolved so far away from that that i could see that those decisions you would never make them now so you're like that's almost someone else yeah what's your view on independently managed sites where people get to do sexual things like cams and things like that versus the the actual porn industry oh my god girl if you have the entrepreneurial spirit start your own website right do it where you are in control of everything and when you're ready for it to be taken down all you have to do is press delete pornhub is estimated to have made over 500 000 off of your content do you think that's an accurate estimate yes but i don't know how much bang bros makes and in the cease and desist they basically said we did not make 50 million and they probably made 49.9 and they're just like they weren't willing to say what they did make only what they didn't make how do you feel about certain websites just uh you know to not name a few posting and pushing your videos and advertising them whenever you start picking up press kind of duping people into believing that you are consistently and still active in the industry it's extremely detrimental and that's been the hardest to get away from like if that if that wasn't happening i think it it would be a lot easier right so it's not necessarily about the fact that you did these things in the past it's about the fact that they are treating it and it looks like you're still doing it actively the most obvious when all of this started breaking out last week you know all over again most of the reaction was wait you're not still doing porn right yeah like sir no i barely get laid i'm married now yeah once a month at most yeah which is enough to be honest with you if there's anyone watching who is claiming oh you know she's victimizing herself she knew what she was getting into she signed a contract she deserves everything coming her way what would you say to them this victim-blaming thing is not it this is not a good look for you you are a grown-ass corporation going after a girl who is just trying to move on y'all look dumb i just i can't wrap my head around the fact that some people are devoting their time taking time out of their day to say you deserve what comes your way for like why what are they getting out of it if i'm not winning this fight then they can still keep me in that little box of you know little tiny shiny box with a bow that's on it and that's where they feel safe with me being because i'm not a threat in that box and they that power gets to go away if the general consensus is she doesn't want her body to be seen we should respect that even if she did sign something when she was 21 years old honestly barely an adult yeah and like are our brains even fully not till 25 25 so anything any decision you make now though fully foreign me trying to get out of my current leaves like you're like my brain's not fully formed i'm a baby [Laughter] you've said that statistically muslim countries consume more porn than anyone else so the men yelling at you are potentially the same men clicking on you what do you think that says about the misogyny and hypocrisy surrounding the industry and just the taboo nature of it in general i think that all of this ties back to shame they are ashamed of themselves for watching it and being into it because it conflicts with their deep-seated love for their religion so to make themselves feel better publicly they need to put me down they need to hate me otherwise they're complicit in what i'm trying to do right it forgives themselves yeah how do you feel about the diss track named after you literally called mia khalifa that has gone so insanely viral thanks to the tick tock which is purportedly the most viral tick tock in the entire western world i'm gonna be honest with you because i'm a gangster and i don't really say this too often but it kind of hurted me a little bit yeah just a little bit your name is attached to something so incredibly popular that is specifically made and fabricated to take you down or at least create some kind of smear campaign against you it was the reason i was so adamant about never ever ever going on tick-tock i was terrified of it i thought that everyone who ever used that song hated me and thought i was a [ __ ] and i would just be completely shunned away from there if i ever like stepped foot onto that platform i counted the song literally says your name 38 times in it yeah well anytime someone puts my name in something it's going to get clicked so congrats to them for figuring out how to click bait and that was specifically in response to a fake tweet that they created they created the fake tweet yes there was a scene there is a whole video of them coming out and saying it was a fake tweet oh they admitted it yeah but recently they posted an apology video about the about creating the whole song and about the [ __ ] shaming and then two days later after the smear campaign came out they posted another video saying we take back our previous apology and we will be coming out with a khalifa distract part two stay tuned click subscribe to be the first one to hear hit or miss part two so they apologize for making up something about you and starting a smear campaign against you kind of and then they rescinded it because there was another smear campaign about you and they decided that they actually are okay with the things they made up about you in the past we'll see they're very young so their front brain hasn't fully formed yet so you posted this tweet that says got death threats check lost my family check lost my mental health check i worry about my future kids check do you feel like that accurately sums up everything that you've went through no i didn't have enough characters like i do have a great life but it has been so hard to get here right i feel like a lot of people focus solely on the fact that you are physically healthy that you have you know some fame surrounding you uh that you have money you know that you're you're comfortable but they don't take into account the mental toll the mental pain that you've been going through and are still going through yeah anything really you become an outspoken advocate for women and human rights in general if if it were up to you and you could change the laws to make things safer for people out there what kind of things would you would you change i just want to protect young women who want to go into this industry i think that it should be illegal to force a woman to sign a contract right then and there they force you to sign it then and there they don't force you but they put it in front of you and say this is your contract sign it like they're not holding a gun to my head but it's intimidation in the sense that i'm 21 and there's four men around me all saying you can trust us yeah like we want to protect you like this is this is gonna be amazing for you like we're gonna do so many incredible things and i'm terrified and i've just lost my family and i'm just now trying to leave a toxic marriage that i was in and the world hates me and all of these things going on a lot of people out there with power know how to make people feel like they should do something immediately if a billion dollar corporation wants a woman to sign away her body's rights they should be forced to hire a third party attorney to review her contract for her i feel like contracts should require at least some time to you know mull it over a little bit and think about and read in detail what you're really getting yourself into i think it should be illegal to show someone a contract for the first time and have them sign it right then and there unless they make that choice very apparent i was still very much in that validation seeking mindset where where i didn't know if i said i want to have an attorney look at this or i want to think about this or i don't like this part of the contract i thought they would just say all right kick rocks leave i feel like now you've you you know and at least you know it's you can now send a message to people read a contract give yourself some time hire the right people really think about it it's it's not a good position to be in no no especially when you're young you feel really helpless yeah absolutely and there's nothing to be done about it because it's right there on paper you signed it like there's no refuting it if there's anyone watching this right now who is young and thinking about getting into the industry themselves is there anything that you'd want to say to them own your content own all of your content do not work with any of these production companies that promise you the world and offer you nothing like these girls are making bank on only fans and it's three buttons away to take everything down if they so choose to in the future it sounds like this discussion is way beyond just the industry in general it's specifically about contracts it really is that's what it comes down to is i'm not against the porn industry i am against these predatory contracts it was about the aftermath because you were yeah in a sense taken advantage of due to predatory contracts and feeling feeling forced to to sign immediately on the spot it's not all production companies that are this way that's not there's a lot of female-owned porn production companies that have a limit on how long they've licensed your content and how long it can stay up and be promoted whereas a lot of other companies not so much if you put profits above human rights human rights i think that says a lot i think it really says a lot yeah says a lot about the disrespect that you have for that person or that type of person yeah exactly that you said it perfectly i can't add anything better to that has your fame affected any of your relationships every relationship my first relationship after porn was dismantled for a multitude of reasons but the main one being he kept me a secret from an entire part of his life because he was ashamed and any type of dating afterwards it was either they were off put by the whole fame aspect or they were a little too into dating mia khalifa which is disgusting yeah where they're like bragging about their friends and stuff yeah and then i met my husband who had never heard of me which was so refreshing have you heard of me no thank you he's like i am so sorry i i know i should have heard of you you're like no that is great actually it was literally a conversation like that i was like we'll take a seat because i'm about to fill you in and you can run if you want and he didn't run but it still affects my relationship like him and i him and i go to therapy together to work out how he can kind of reconcile all of the all of the hate that he gets versus like still wanting to support me publicly and not feel like not make it seem like he's ashamed of me while also still protecting his mental health and our relationship dating you being married to you has forced him to kind of become part of all this yeah you can't pick and choose what parts of me you're proud of it's either unconditional or i'm out the door and we i've been working towards that and really trying to understand what support means for both of us and um how to kind of minimize those outside voices that are the public just trying to bring us down and you know he really likes you when he's willing to take a death threat for you oh yeah that's true love it is you haven't experienced true love until you've taken a death threat for someone what is a negative interaction that stood out to you that you think most people would not imagine to like actually happen to someone i was at a business meeting in london and i was there with a company that i had just signed with it was the two men who were the heads of the company and my manager at the time and we were just sitting down kind of celebrating having justin done a great press tour for the project we were working on and i get come up to by this guy and his girlfriend and we were interrupted in the middle of talking and eating and he said hey me and cliff can i get a picture with you and i looked up at him and i'm like no we're eating and i said it just like that like it was it was a rude way but it was also very rude for him to come up while someone was actively in the middle of a conversation and after i said that his girlfriend who was standing next to him grabbed him by the arm and said i told you that wasn't her there's not enough on her face let's go babe and i went to the bathroom and cried and i didn't really know how to handle it especially because it came from a woman and especially because i was like i was i was there for business and it was something that had nothing to do with the adult industry and i was just very dejected and embarrassed and felt like that they would never want to work with me again that must have been really hurtful yeah did they end up working with you still after that yeah we're still in the contract okay good good okay okay they're like that's it i'm out no they were they were actually like very um they were they were trying to comfort me after and i was just trying to play it off like oh no like who's there what a dumb [ __ ] i'm sure you've like grown thick skin to reading comments like that but to have someone right there in your vulnerable state when you're you're like obviously having a moment and for them to come out there and just blatantly disrespect you like that yeah that was that was the only words i exchanged with them and i will probably never forget that experience in my life what is it about being who you are and who you've become that brings you the most joy being forced to learn more about myself and feeling a lot of times like it's never going to work and it's worthless and i should just delete all social media and just give another shot at being a normal person and see if it works but um i'm very proud of my struggle the things you've gone through and the ways that you've grown i feel like you've been able to help a lot of people out there on the internet just trying to live their life you know you've been able to prevent them from making similar mistakes i really hope so yeah otherwise it's not worth it like my mistakes are only worth it if other people can learn from them because it's over for me but i gotta i gotta try and do good with what i know i actually have a parting gift for you a best interviewer shirt which you could get at thedildoshop.com but for you mia this is free and i will socially distance throw this to you don't let it get into your face because this is infected okay okay okay yeah yeah yeah disinfect that spray the lysol all up in there this is why i do this for free t-shirt damn look at that best interview shirt i'm going to wear this to my next interview because they're going to be so bad shirt you're like i'm interviewing you all right you got five seconds of shout out to promote anything you want directly to camera go follow more black creators on all social platforms you've got five seconds to place all of your burden from your past on to some other random person go you look like you could handle it he's been through some i mean like he's seen some this is my horcrux now i'm putting all of my burdens in here he could deal with it if you subscribe to his channel i will not follow you but you should subscribe to his channel damn who could want i mean like that's that's a great deal i will look at your account but not hit follow the self-control on that woman thank you so much mia i feel like i understand the world of mia khalifa just a little bit more and i would shake your hand but you know we're doing so distant right now i feel so distant far away from you thank you for the free therapy you're welcome after spending the day with mia khalifa i've come to understand just how much a brief moment can define our entire existence especially in the modern age shouldn't we be able to evolve and shift away from our decisions we made when we were barely adults especially if our entire well-being is being jeopardized because of it see you later bye guys press a like if you don't get free bagels for being in the adult film industry like why do it no they didn't even have craft services that's [ __ ] i'm just kidding i mean you know you get a free enema here and there and it's you know it does pay for itself eventually so i guess that's like a normal thing in entertainment we got him in the back if you want i had three right beforehand just to make sure to keep your girlish figure yeah

Channel: AnthonyPadilla

Views: 5,191,422

Rating: 4.9278436 out of 5

Keywords: anthony padilla, padilla, anthony, smosh anthony, anthony padilla smosh, i spent a day with, interview, mia khalifa, miakhalifa, ilovefriday, hit or miss

Id: zP04Nb_lesI

Length: 33min 3sec (1983 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 07 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/phfenix]

100% of her success in life can be attributed to her doing porn. she's just another random nobody otherwise. She doesn't serve as a good example. unless she's actively campaigning against her own lifestyle she's going to be considered as a success story and a viable lifestyle choice. The fact that nobody really hears anything about her is telling.

[u/[deleted]]

Anthony Padilla is great. #justiceformia

[u/[deleted]]

She isn't anti-porn.