Featured Image Credit: Richard Pelham/Getty Images / Chesnot/Getty Images
Topics: Boxing, Elon Musk, JK Rowling, Olympics, Imane Khelif
Callum Jones
Topics: Boxing, Elon Musk, JK Rowling, Olympics, Imane Khelif
Olympic gold medalist Imane Khelif has spoken out amid her ongoing cyberbullying lawsuit.
The Algerian boxer became an Olympic champion in Paris, but that didn't come without its controversy.
It was Khelif's fight against Italy's Angela Carini that made all the headlines as the pair only exchanged a few punches before Italian boxer abandoned the bout altogether.
In 2023, Khelif was banned from the IBA Women's World Boxing Championships as she failed an unspecified gender eligibility test.
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The boxer was born a woman and is listed as a woman on her passport, and was deemed eligible to compete by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for the Olympics.
Khelif suffered horrendous trolling over the controversy, and she has since filed a lawsuit against a handful of individuals accused of having committed alleged 'acts of aggravated cyber harassment'.
While no individuals have been named as defendants, the likes of JK Rowling and Elon Musk have been mentioned.
As that comes to light, the boxer has broken her silence.
In an interview with El Birad, Khelif admitted she was 'hurt a lot' by the all the chatter surrounding her gender at the Olympics.
"But immediately after there was a big uproar from big politicians around the world, athletes around the world, and even artists and stars, Elon Musk, Trump.. this thing..... that affected me," she told the Algerian-based news channel.
"I am not lying to you, it affected me. It affected me a lot, hurt me a lot. I can't describe to you the amount of fear I had."
She added: "The scenario was very scary. Thank god, all the people of Algeria and the Arab world knew Imane Khelif with her femininity, her courage, her will.
"Honestly, I don't like to get into politics in sports, but they got into politics in sports. Sports and politics are two separate things
"These politicians who are oppressing me, they don't have the right to say that I'm a transgender."
Rowling took to Twitter during the Olympics and called Khelif a man.
The Harry Potter author also accused the Olympian of 'enjoying the distress' of Carini and 'shattering' her sporting ambitions.
Meanwhile, Musk shared a post from American swimmer Riley Gaines that again misgendered Khelif and said she doesn't 'belong in women’s sports'.
The Twitter owner added: "Absolutely."
If Rowling and Musk lose the case against the boxer they could possibly face a spell behind bars.
UNILAD has previously reached out to Musk and Rowling's representatives for comment.