After Being Called a 'Zionist Bitch,' Helen Mirren Responds: 'How Can You Do to Others What Was Done to You?'

Acclaimed actress Helen Mirren, who is currently in Sicily to receive a lifetime achievement award at the Taormina Film Festival, addressed in an interview a controversy that drew wide attention, the verbal confrontation she experienced in London, during which a man called her a “vicious Zionist bitch.” Mirren said the attack apparently came from someone “too enthusiastic or mentally unstable.”

In the video documenting the incident, which took place in November and resurfaced online several weeks ago, the 80-year-old Mirren is seen walking in the Tower Hill area of London with her husband, director Taylor Hackford, when a man approaches her. At the start of the encounter, Mirren appears calm and even asks how he is doing, but within a short time he begins hurling accusations and insults at her over her views on Israel. “Here is Helen Mirren, the self-declared Zionist,” the man shouted at her. “You said that Israel should exist forever because of the Holocaust. You are a vicious Zionist bitch! And you too!” he shouted at her husband, who replied, “Fuck off,” and asked him to stay away, while the stranger answered, “Fuck off as well.”

When asked in the current interview about her position on the issue, Mirren first asked the media to be cautious in its reporting, then laid out her complex view: “Evil forces are growing everywhere, even in a country like Israel. How can a people that went through what they went through repeat those same acts against other people?” she said, alluding to the comparison between the horrors of the Holocaust and the war in Gaza. She also emphasized her love for Israel and her deep connections to the place. “I have wonderful friends from Israel. The artistic and intellectual community there is extraordinary.”

Mirren noted that she grew up in post-World War II Europe, and added: “My parents’ generation understood deeply the scale of the Holocaust’s horror. The establishment of Israel was a defining and important moment, even if perhaps it was done in the wrong way or in the wrong place, I do not know. But after the horrors, something had to happen.”

In closing, she offered a historical perspective on the concept of power. “When I played Catherine the Great or studied Alexander the Great, I understood that they are remembered as ‘great’ because they conquered territories, killed, and sowed destruction brutally,” she said. “It devastates me. Evil is always lurking and waiting to take over, even in a place like Israel. I worked in a country that was once idealistic Israel, and I always wanted to believe it was a country that would never do wrong, but of course wrongs were done, even then.”

Mirren has for years been considered one of Hollywood’s most prominent figures to have expressed support for Israel. She first visited Israel in 1967, after the Six-Day War, volunteered in a kibbutz, and has said in the past that she traveled around the country. In 2015, when she received a lifetime achievement award at the Israeli Film Festival in Los Angeles, she spoke out against calls for a cultural boycott of Israel and said cutting off Israeli artists was “the craziest idea.” In recent years, her connection to Israel has returned to the headlines following her portrayal of Golda Meir in the film “Golda” by Israeli director Guy Nattiv. Mirren also voiced support for Israel in recent months: in April, it was reported that she was among more than 1,000 senior figures and creators in the entertainment industry who signed an open letter supporting Israel’s continued participation in Eurovision, amid campaigns calling to exclude it from the contest.