Do we like Golshifteh Farahani?
Our score: 8 out of 10. Years of public support for Iranian women and protesters, no harmful words found, and only unverified gossip against her.
Farahani was born in Tehran and became one of Iran's most popular actors before the Hollywood film Body of Lies changed everything. She now lives in France and has said she cannot go back to Iran because of her films, because she is a woman, and because she does not wear the veil. Exile is the defining fact of her life.
The recent noise is gossip, not scandal. Journalist Florian Tardif's May 2026 book claims a flirty text from Macron led to the viral slap in Hanoi. Brigitte Macron's circle told Le Parisien she firmly rejected the story and never looks at her husband's phone, and Farahani has said the rumours come and go and don't bother her. It's an unproven book claim built on entourage whispers, so we wouldn't hold it against her.
On the harm check, we found nothing from her that targets women, migrants, LGBTQ+ people or public health. Her public statements go the other way. In a 2019 interview she described a crackdown in Iran as “a massacre, with hundreds of people dead”. We found no statements from her on LGBTQ+ issues, so the record is silent there rather than good or bad.
In January 2026 she posted that Iran was “on fire once again” and that her heart beats with the Iranian people. The post came amid renewed protests, and she also condemned the human toll and the oligarchs and foreign powers she says profit from the crisis. She has long resisted being cast as a political figure, telling AFP she is “just an actress”. Her actions say otherwise.
The good stuff is mostly speaking up when it costs her. She has become a prominent voice for women's freedom in the Iranian movement, especially after the protests that followed Mahsa Amini's death. In 2025 she was named jury president of the Deauville American Film Festival.
The record is thin in places. We found no court cases against her, and no credible allegation of mistreating anyone. The Macron talk rests on anonymous sourcing and has been publicly denied. If you like her work, there's no reason to feel awkward about it.