Lebanese-American internet celebrity Mia Khalifa has become one of the most vocal figures in talking about Lebanon and calling out its leaders for corruption – in front of her millions of fans from all around the world.
Now, after former minister Gebran Bassil got officially sanctioned by the United States, she has had fun avidly roasting him – and Lebanese people are just loving it.
After he was sanctioned, Bassil uploaded a photo on social media of his elderly mother looking back at a large display of family pictures on a wall. He addressed his mother with a heavily emotional and pity-inciting caption, which, in normal instances, people speak in private.
However, this was not obviously meant to be private or just addressed to his mother but to the public. It is one of Bassil’s notorious features to use emotional and sectarian manipulation – depending on the situation – whether to incite public sympathy or pity or fear-led loyalty as also seen with his tweets after the sanctions.
Using his own family for that self-serving political purpose was seen just three months ago when he used his own 14-year-old son, exposing him to online public reactions and bullying.
To Bassil’s new pity-inciting post, Mia Khalifa responded with: โYour mom is looking to find where exactly she went wrong, fam.โ
Her comments and tags of him eventually led him to block her altogether on Instagram, following in the footsteps of his father-in-law, President Aoun, who also blocked Mia on the social media platform.ย
Notably, this happened around 100 days after the Beirut Port explosion, after which an investigation has still not concluded the cause of the blast.
Mia’s love for Lebanon outshines the Lebanese politicians’ feelings toward the motherland.
She has worked tirelessly urging people to donate to help Beirut. Of course, she noted that donations go to NGOs instead of the Lebanese government.
She tried raising thousands of dollars for the Lebanese Red Cross but eventually ended up donating $100,000 from her own money, sticking to her promise (unlike a handful of Lebanese leaders).ย
Unfortunately, she is banned from entering Lebanon, but that doesn’t stop her from caring about her country’s situation and the struggles of her people, standing up for them, and the people love her.
There have been even banners spotted in protests, proclaiming her more honorable than the ruling politicians and lauding her for being more deserving of this country than them.