Dame Helen Mirren has been verbally abused on a London street by an anti-Israel agitator who called her an “evil Zionist b****”.
The 80-year-old Oscar-winning actor, who has long been a staunch ally to Jewish people and has spoken out against cultural boycotts of Israel, was filmed walking with her husband, director Taylor Hackford, near Tower Hill in central London.
In the video, Mirren initially smiles and asks the man filming if he is okay, before he starts hurling abuse at her
He says: “Helen Mirren, the avowed Zionist. She said Israel should last forever because the Holocaust and she was very happy that Palestinian houses were gone.
“You put the post up you evil old bag, you evil Zionist b**ch.”
Mirren then goes silent, while Hackford tells the man to “f*** off”.
The footage was first published by an anonymous account called Anti-Fascist Action UK, but it is not clear when the confrontation occurred.
In 2023, when Mirren played Golder Meir in the eponymous biopic, she said on Israeli television: “I believe in Israel, in the existence of Israel, and I believe Israel has to go forward into the future, for the rest of eternity. I believe in Israel because of the Holocaust.”
She told Israel’s Channel 12: “I know there is a base, a foundation of deep, intelligence, thoughtfulness, commitment, poetry even in Israel that is very, very special, I think.”
She has also signed an open letter supporting Israel’s inclusion in Eurovision and, shortly after the Six Day War, she hitchhiked around the Jewish state and volunteered on a kibbutz.
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