The 22-year-old Instagram star Sahar Tabar, aka the 'zombie Angelina Jolie lookalike', has been paraded on national television following her arrest by Iranian authorities, BBC News has reported.
Tabar, a social media influencer, who often uploads images of herself as a creepy-looking doppelgänger of Jolie, was arrested on charges of blasphemy and the instigation of violence two weeks previously.
Per BBC News, the Tasnim news agency per reports that Iranian judicial authorities responded to a number of complaints made about Tabar.
Watch the footage of the interview as it appeared on Iranian television:Other charges against the blogger include the illegal acquisition of property, insulting the Iranian national dress code and encouraging youths to commit corruption. Her popular Instagram account is currently deleted (although, her followers have already archived her posts), and her YouTube channel is still accessible.
But according to a report on BBC News, her appearance on the state-owned television channel IRTV2 was held as an example of how "the madness to become famous on social media has ruined a real life."
Tabar stated that her corpselike appearance was not the result of cosmetic surgery, but through prosthetics, makeup, and photo-editing software instead. She also claimed that her mother urged her to abandon the influencer lifestyle.
In the interview, Tabar stated: "I do not currently look like my photoshopped pictures. My mother was telling me to stop, but I didn't listen. Sometimes the words of a stranger or a friend can be more important than those of a parent."
She added that she was the child of a broken home and that she regrets her social media usage - pointing out that she could have enrolled in a college university if it wasn't for her online persona.
Take a look at this video of Sahar Tabar's Halloween costume below:However, the stilted nature of Tabar's statements, as well as her sudden reversal of opinion on her blogging, has made some ask if the interview has been staged by the fundamentalist Islamic regime for propaganda purposes. We hope to have more on this story as it develops.
