‘Evil Zionist bitch’: UK police probe resurfaced clip of man accosting Helen Mirren

Police in London launched an investigation into a potential hate crime after a video resurfaced on Thursday showing a man accosting Hollywood actress Helen Mirren on the streets of the British capital and calling her “an evil Zionist bitch.”

In the video — which according to The Times of London was originally shared in November 2025 — the person filming approaches Mirren and her husband, Taylor Hackford.

“And there’s Helen Mirren,” the man says as he walks up to them, “the avowed Zionist.”

“You said Israel should last forever because of the Holocaust,” the man shouts, claiming that the 80-year-old actress was “very happy that Palestinians’ houses were gone.”

Throughout the interaction, Hackford repeatedly tells the man to “fuck off,” but is ignored.

Actress Helen Mirren in East London yesterday gets called a zionist bitch pic.twitter.com/CO8TLLIhaU

— London & UK Street News (@CrimeLdn) May 28, 2026

As he begins to back away from the couple, the man behind the camera tells Mirren that she is “an evil Zionist bitch” and informs Hackford that the same goes for him before adding, “fuck you and all.”

The man’s earlier comments reference a 2023 interview Mirren gave for the premiere of “Golda,” in which she starred as the eponymous former prime minister Golda Meir.

In the interview, Mirren — who is not Jewish — said that she believed “in the existence of Israel” and its right to exist “because of the Holocaust,” and spoke out against cultural boycotts of the Jewish state, saying it “didn’t seem right” to abandon Israeli artists.

She also recounted her experience during her first visit to Israel in 1967, after the Six Day War.

“I witnessed things that were wrong,” she said of her visit. “I saw Arabs being thrown out of their houses in Jerusalem. But it was just the extraordinary magical energy of a country just beginning to put its roots in the ground. It was an amazing time to be here.”

In a statement quoted by The Telegraph, a spokesman for London’s Metropolitan Police said the department was “aware of a video circulating online, showing a man and a woman being subjected to antisemitic verbal abuse in Tower Hill.”

“Officers are currently reviewing the footage and making attempts to contact the victims to establish whether they would like to report the incident,” the police said, adding that officers were looking into whether a hate crime had been committed.