{"id":473141,"date":"2026-05-29T13:47:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T13:47:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/473141\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T13:47:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T13:47:18","slug":"police-review-alleged-antisemitic-abuse-of-helen-mirren","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/473141\/","title":{"rendered":"Police review alleged antisemitic abuse of Helen Mirren"},"content":{"rendered":"

Police in London are reviewing footage showing Oscar-winning actress Helen Mirren being verbally abused in the street over her support for Israel.<\/p>\n

The video, which has circulated on social media in recent days, shows the British actress walking near Tower Hill in London with her husband, American film director Taylor Hackford.<\/p>\n

The footage is believed to have been filmed late last year. It shows Mirren smiling and greeting the man filming before he begins shouting at her.<\/p>\n

\"Taylor
\nTaylor Hackford and Helen Mirren<\/p>\n

The man can be heard referring to comments Mirren previously made about Israel and the Holocaust before verbally abusing the 80-year-old actress and swearing at Hackford.<\/p>\n

Hackford then steps in and repeatedly tells the man to leave them alone.<\/p>\n

In a statement, a Metropolitan Police spokesperson said: “We are aware of a video circulating online, showing a man and a woman being subjected to antisemitic verbal abuse in Tower Hill.<\/p>\n

“It is believed that the incident took place at the end of last year.<\/p>\n

“Officers are currently reviewing the footage and making attempts to contact the victims to establish whether they would like to report the incident.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nHelen Mirren in Golda <\/p>\n

“The Met continues to work hard to tackle hate crimes of all types, and officers across London have made more than 90 hate crime arrests since the end of March.”<\/p>\n

Mirren, who is not Jewish, has spoken publicly about her support for the existence of Israel.<\/p>\n

Last month, she was among a number of entertainment figures, including Boy George and Sharon Osbourne, who signed an open letter supporting Israel’s inclusion in the Eurovision Song Contest.<\/p>\n

She has also played several well-known Jewish figures during her career, including Maria Altmann in Woman In Gold and former Israeli prime minister Golda Meir in the 2023 film Golda.<\/p>\n

While promoting Golda, Mirren said: “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.”<\/p>\n

The actress first visited Israel in 1967, when she volunteered on a kibbutz near the Sea of Galilee.<\/p>\n

She has previously criticised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and, in 2023, described protests against him as a “pivotal moment in Israeli history”.<\/p>\n

Representatives for Helen Mirren and Taylor Hackford have been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n

Source: Press Association<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police in London are reviewing footage showing Oscar-winning actress Helen Mirren being verbally abused in the street over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473142,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-473141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}