From the New York Times, this is the interview. I'm David Marcasey.

To be

bombarded with all sorts of difficult questions about self-presentation,

public judgment, freedom of speech, personal power, and money.

Over the last decade or so, Mia Khalifa has been forced to try to find some answers.

In 2014, when Khalifa, who was born in Lebanon and raised Catholic in the D.C. area, was 21 years old, she made a decision that

changed the rest of her life. Khalifa was working in the adult film

industry and performed in an explicit scene while wearing a hijab. The video went viral and the response was harsh.

She even got death threats, including a photoshopped image of her being beheaded by the Islamic

state. The vitriol was part of what led Khalifa to leave being be beheaded by the Islamic State.

The vitriol was part of what led Khalifa

to leave the adult film industry

and try to go back to anonymity.

She couldn't.

So a few years ago, she decided

that rather than try to pretend her past didn't exist, she could try to own it.

She gradually turned herself into a massively popular social media influencer, one with

a lingering aura of transgression.

Kaleh now has millions following her on X, Tik-Tock, and Instagram,

and she's also built a big audience on Only Fans,

which is an online platform where subscribers can directly pay performers for all kinds of content,

some of which is fairly innocuous, and much of which, including Klyfas, is, let's say risque.

...