‘Evil Zionist B—h’: Actress Helen Mirren Verbally Harassed in London for Longtime Israel Support
by Shiryn Ghermezian
Actress Helen Mirren arrives for the Premiere of the film ‘Fast X’ on May 12, 2023, at the Colosseum monument in Rome. Photo: Luca Carlino via Reuters Connect
Oscar-winning actress Dame Helen Mirren was verbally accosted and called an “evil Zionist b–ch” for supporting Israel while walking in London on Wednesday night.
Mirren, 80, was strolling in the East London area with her husband, Oscar-winning director Taylor Hackford, when a man approached her and shouted, “There is Helen Mirren, the avowed Zionist. You said Israel should last forever because of the Holocaust.” He was referring to remarks the British actress, who is not Jewish, made in 2023 about Israel.
“F–k off,” Hackford, 81, responded.
The anti-Israel thug then said to Mirren, who is not Jewish, “You’re an evil Zionist b–ch. And you as well, f–k you as well,” directing the comment to Hackford. A video of the interaction was shared on X by the account London & UK Street News.
Warning: The video contains explicit language.
Actress Helen Mirren in East London yesterday gets called a zionist bitch pic.twitter.com/CO8TLLIhaU
— London & UK Street News (@CrimeLdn) May 28, 2026
Mirren first visited Israel after World War II and worked as a volunteer at Kibbutz Ha’on in the Galilee region. In an interview with the Israeli media outlet N12 in 2023, Mirren said, “I believe in the existence of Israel, and I believe Israel has to go forward into the future for the rest of eternity. And I believe in Israel because of the Holocaust.”
“I’ve met such extraordinary people in Israel,” she said in the same interview. “I know that there is a foundation of deep intelligence, thoughtfulness, commitment, [and] poetry even in Israel that is very, very special.”
Mirren is also a critic of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. She told Israel’s N12, “I’ve met great artists in Israel. To abandon those artists didn’t seem the right thing to me. On the contrary, work with the artists of Israel. It’s the artistic community that I believe will carry Israel forward.”
Mirren joined thousands of cultural figures who signed an open letter condemning the deadly Hamas terrorist attack in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. She was also among more than 1,000 members of the entertainment industry who signed an open letter supporting Israel’s participation in the Eurovision Song Contest earlier this month, in which Israel finished in second place.
Mirren played Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir in the 2023 film “Golda” and real-life Jewish refugee and art collector Maria Altmann in “Woman in Gold.” She also starred in the 2023 film “White Bird” as a Jewish woman who survived Nazi-occupied France as a youngster with the help of a non-Jewish boy from her school and his family who sheltered her.
