Zahia Dehar

Zahia Dehar (born 25 February 1992) is an Algerian-French fashion and lingerie designer, model, actress and former sex worker.

Dehar is best known for having been involved in a sex scandal involving footballers at the time when she was an underage escort.

Zahia Dehar was born in Ghriss, Algeria, on 25 February 1992.

She moved to Champigny-sur-Marne, France with her mother and younger sister at the age of 10.

She entered into prostitution at the age of sixteen, and was successful in high-end prostitution, earning up to €20,000 per month at the rate of €1,000 or €2,000 a time.

Her father, Hacène Dehar, still lives in Algeria.

He has refused any form of contact with his daughter since the prostitution allegations appeared.

In 2009, Dehar, who was then 16 or 17, was allegedly paid for sex by Franck Ribéry and Karim Benzema, who were players on the France national football team.

The age of consent in France is 16, but prostitution was legal at the time only if the worker was over the age of 18.

The case started to come to light during an investigation by the Brigade de répression du proxénétisme into the activities of Abousofiane Moustaid, also known as "Abou Sofiane", a former contestant on Nouvelle Star who became the host of a celebrity show on the TNT channel.

The authorities were particularly interested in the Zaman Café, a Parisian bar, part of whose turnover came from prostitution.

After the administrative closure of the establishment, the police officers questioned the prostitutes who worked there.

They discovered that one of them, Zahia Dehar, started to work there while she was still a minor, and had also served several footballers.

The young woman claimed to have met Karim Benzema in May 2008 on the sidelines of the Trophées UNFP du football ceremony, and to have met Franck Ribéry on 7 April 2009, in a hotel in Munich where she and another escort had been sent to join the footballer, as a "birthday present" for the latter.

Zahia Dehar was interviewed three times in April 2010.

The investigation became public in 2010, just before the French team participated in the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

The then-current French national team manager Raymond Domenech cited Benzema's struggle for form with his new club Real Madrid rather than his alleged involvement in the sex scandal as his reason for excluding the striker from the squad.

In July 2010, Ribéry and Benzema were indicted for "solicitation of minor prostitute", an offence punishable in France by up to three years in prison and a €45,000 fine.

Another member of the team, Sidney Govou, was also interviewed; however, he avoided prosecution as the investigation revealed that his meeting with Zahia took place after she had reached the age of maturity.

The mediatization of Dehar started from this case.

Very quickly, her face was revealed by the media, and many photos of her circulated on the web, making the young woman a real "Internet phenomenon".

Le Monde initially revealed her name, simply calling her "Zahia D."

In May 2010, she gave an interview to Paris Match, which revealed her full name.

She gave her version of the case and declared, among other things, "I consider myself an escort, but not a prostitute" (providing support services without having sex with the client), and denied having a pimp or belonging to a network.

The case continued until the mid-2010s.

In late 2011, the Paris prosecutor asked for a dismissal for Ribéry and Benzema; but in August 2012, nine people were sent back by the investigating judge to the criminal court, including Benzema and Ribéry for "solicitation of minor prostitute".

In February 2011, the American and Spanish editions of V Magazine published a twelve-page tribute to Brigitte Bardot, It included several photos of Dehar shot in New York, marking her return in the media.

To publicise her modelling a website was officially launched on 1 March 2011.

In late May 2011, photographer and director Greg Williams featured Dehar in a futuristic short film entitled Bionic.

The following month, Pierre et Gilles created a painting representing her as Eve.

"An artistic and friendly thunderbolt was born our new Eve. Dehar: magical beautiful, innocent and luminous, she is the dream model" declared the two artists about this piece.

In August 2011, Alix Malka photographed Dehar for the Italian edition of the American fashion magazine Vanity Fair, which also contained an interview with Dehar.

In the last quarter of 2011, her appearances in the media were less common, although she was photographed with Christian Louboutin and Farida Khelfa, at a shoe exhibition at the Galerie du Passage in November 2011.

On 31 January 2014, Benzema and Ribéry were acquitted by the criminal court of Paris, the court saying they were unaware that Zahia was under age.

Five other suspects, including Abu Sufyan, who acted as a "matchmaker" between the young woman and footballers, were convicted for procuring.

Abu Sofiane appealed and published a book in which he claimed his innocence and accused Dehar of having taken advantage of his address book.

In June 2015, the Court of Appeal confirmed his conviction and he received a heavier sentence.

Dehar's involvement in the scandal and other acts, such as posting indiscreet photos on Twitter, have earned her the nickname la scandaleuse ("the scandalous one") in the French press.

Dehar achieved celebrity status as a result of the scandal.

She capitalized on her fame by modelling for various artists such as Pierre et Gilles and Karl Lagerfeld, and became a fashion and lingerie designer.