Arabella Mia – aka Arsenal’s biggest female fan – had been desperate to watch the USA during her road trip across America for the World Cup.
But when she finally got the chance, an attempt to create social media content led to her being mistaken for a sex worker. Best known for her eye-catching bodypainting stunt outside the Emirates Stadium, the Gunners supporter had been travelling across the United States in an RV while following England’s World Cup campaign.
When the US were playing during a stop in Dallas, she couldn’t resist a chance to take in the atmosphere. “I went to Texas Live because I was in Dallas a couple of days after the England game,” 28-year-old Arabella told Daily Star Sport.
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“I was doing fan interviews with Americans, and there were security guards and police all the way around this bar. They had guns and everything!”
Arabella loves to share fan interviews from sporting events with her 362,000 followers on Instagram – with questions ranging from cheesy pickup lines to cheekily asking one fan if she could have his German sausage.
But in Dallas, her content caught the attention of security instead. “This security lady came over to me just after I’d finished an interview, and she said: ‘Sorry, the police have said that you’re handing out flyers’.
“I was like: ‘No, I’m not handing out flyers’, and she goes: ‘Well, are you handing out flyers for some sort of strip club or something?’
“I’m going around in Levi’s and an England shirt. It was like 38 degrees outside, so do people just not wear shorts here? Then she goes, ‘Well, are you some type of prostitute then? Are you giving out business cards?’
“I said: ‘No, you can check my bag if you want to. I’m literally a social media content creator. I’m doing interviews with football fans like I do at home, which I show on my Instagram’.
“She was like, ‘No, I don’t want to check your bag’… How can you accuse me of handing out flyers and then not even want to check if I have any?
“She said: ‘Oh no, we don’t do that here’. Anyway, she goes: ‘Right, OK, let me just show the police your phone’.
“So she showed my Instagram to the police, and then she said, ‘Right, well, if we catch you speaking to another person, we’re going to call the police and get you escorted out of here’.
“So I had to stop interviewing fans…”
Despite the awkward encounter, Arabella stayed to watch the USA’s 2-0 win over Australia. But she admitted the experience in the fan zone was a far cry from what she’d encountered following England at the last Euros.
“Did you see all the stuff online where you’d see all the English fans in a bar singing and screaming?
“I went to the game in New York and went to a bar afterwards. People would get up on the tables to sing, and then they’d get told to get down.
“So you could literally get a video of that moment, and it would look like the craziest thing ever!”
Arabella had been dreaming of football coming home, but she would have been watching the final from Australia, where she currently lives, at 5am.
“Watching Arsenal games at those times is crazy, but it depends,” she joked. “People see me awake on Twitter at all sorts of times because of the games.
“The pubs are still open in Australia at those times, though. My housemates actually went to watch one while I was in the US, and they were at the pub at 7am.
“She sent me a picture of her Guinness and said: ‘I don’t even know how I’m awake’.