Former porn star Mia Khalifa [photo], who is Lebanese-American, says ISIS threatened to behead her in mocked-up execution photos.

When adult Web site PornHub announced that Mia Khalifa (not her real name) was the “#1 ranked pornstar” on their site, on Dec. 28, 2014, it raised her profile in the west while imperiling her her in the middle east, her ethnic background.
Khalifa, a 21-year-old raised in Maryland, has a degree in history and also acted as an “unofficial mascot” for the Florida State Seminoles.
However, the fact that she was born in Lebanon soon made her infamous in the Middle East and brought her to the attention of ISIS.
The former top-ranked performer on the adult website says the bloodthirsty terrorist group sent her the photos through social media.
Although she has been threatened by ISIS, Khalifa says in a recent interview with The Sports Junkies that she won’t give the extremists what they want: ‘[Y]ou can’t show weakness. That’s exactly what they’re looking for. I really try and just make it look like it rolls off, but I’ll admit, it gets to you after a while.’

Khalifa who moved from Beirut, Lebanon, to the US at the age of 10 before moving to Miami, where she’s currently based, had a brief but remarkable stint in the porn industry which drew criticism from many, including those in the Middle East who branded her a ‘disgrace’ to the region.
Remarkably, the sale of erotic materials is banned in nearly every Muslim country except Lebanon and Turkey.

She has since re-tweeted the abuse sparked by those who have issues with her Middle Eastern origins.
Many took issue with a scene from one of her videos showing her having sex while wearing a hijab, part of traditional female Muslim dress, describing it as ‘problematic and gross’.
One Twitter user threatened her head ‘will be cut off soon’, while another warned her she would be ‘the first person in Hellfire’.

Khalifa – who comes from a Christian family – told The Washington Post in 2015 that she was surprised this scene in particular caused anger and was meant to be satirical.
‘There are Hollywood movies that depict Muslims in a much worse manner than any scene Bang Bros [the company who made the video] could produce.’
She also came under fire for her tattoos relating to Lebanon, including the opening line from the Lebanese national anthem and another of the Lebanese Forces Cross, which is meant to ‘show solidarity with my father’s political views after a bombing in Lebanon in 2012’.
Critics accused Khalifa of shaming Lebanon by appearing in adult movies with these tattoos on her body.

She now makes her living covering sports and pop culture through her own channel

‘They’re embarrassed I’m ‘claiming’ them – as if I had a choice. I was born there,’ she told Newsweek in 2015.
She also admitted to the publication that her parents at the time had stopped speaking with her because of her career choice.
‘I’ve dragged their name through the mud,’ lamented Khalifa. ‘I feel guilty for dragging them into this and having all their friends know now that it’s on Lebanese media. But that was never my intention.’
Khalifa now makes her living covering sports and pop culture through her own channel on the live-streaming service Twitch.