Controversial porn scene that lead to Mia Khalifa's death threats

Former porn star and controversial online figure Mia Khalifa has recalled the shocking threats she received after filming a scene where she had sex wearing a hijab.

Khalifa, 25, had only been in the porn industry a few months when a director told her she would be required to wear the cultural head piece while "performing", she said.

She knew it wouldn't sit well with the public, news.com.au reported.

"I said to him 'you're going to get me f**king killed'," she told BBC Radio's 5 Liveover the weekend.

When asked why she didn't say no, Khalifa said: "Being 21, I didn't know that I could speak up."

The scene made Khalifa the number one ranked performer on Pornhub, but also drew the attention of Islamic State.

The porn scene where Mia Khalifa wore a hijab. Photo / Supplied

Her face was photoshopped onto another person's body in a video that showed the mocked up Khalifa being beheaded.

The footage scared her and confirmed what she feared when her director asked her to do the scene.

Although the alleged threats from Islamic State didn't stop with the video.

"There was also a Google image screenshot of my apartment tweeted at me, that had a death threat go along with it," she said.

"It was a threat I took very seriously."

Within a week of the video going up on Pornhub, Khalifa was hit with a tonne of abuse from the Muslim and Lebanese community all over her social media accounts. Islamic State targeted her on Instagram too.

"My Instagram account got hacked by ISIS. They started pushing propaganda on it."

Controversial porn actor Mia Khalifa was threatened by ISIS for wearing a hijab in a porno. Photo / Twitter

Despite coming under scrutiny for a number of other scandals in the last two years, Khalifa believes the incident with Islamic State has made her a stronger person.

"No one harassing me on the internet is going to get to me after all that."

Khalifa, who up until recently was a co-host on US sport show Out Of Bounds, is still getting clicks on the porn site and refuses to be silenced by Islamic State.

She recently appeared on an episode of Lance Armstrong's podcast The Forward where she discussed not being able to shake the 'porn star' distinction even though she only did it for a brief amount of time.

In the episode, themed How we f**k up in life, The former world number one cyclist empathises with Khalifa saying "I've watched how you've tried hard to reinvent yourself ... three months is just, no time, it's crazy."

She told Armstrong that a porn career was never something she had thought about, but when a man approached her shortly after having breast surgery for health reasons, she eventually caved. "I thought about it for two weeks and made the mistake of saying yes." Khalifa said she had low self esteem after spending her teens overweight, and was looking for validation.

"As soon as I started to gain popularity that's when I was like 'get the f*** out of this' ... this was not what I was trying to do whatsoever," she told Armstrong about the overnight stardom that came with doing the controversial hijab scenes.

Now, with a passion for all things sport, the social media personality is trying to put her shady past behind her, looking at different ways to escape the 'porn star' title.

"I just try to laugh things off because it could always be much worse."