Quick Facts About Mojtaba Khamenei: Health and Disfigurement, Impotency Claims and Gay Rumours

Mojtaba Khamenei, the 59‑year‑old new Supreme Leader of Iran, is reportedly facing intense scrutiny over his health, sexuality and private life after he was seriously injured in the Feb. 28 airstrike in Tehran that killed his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and five other family members including his wife Zahra and teenage son Mohammad Bagher.

Mojtaba's rapid rise to the top of Iran's theocratic hierarchy was already contentious before the airstrike. Long seen by some analysts as a powerful backroom operator, he has now assumed formal leadership just as rumours about his survival, health and personal history are being scrutinised by foreign governments, exiled opponents and the international press. Little of this can be independently verified, but it is shaping how the outside world discusses the man now formally titled Leader of the Revolution.

Confusion Over Health and Whereabouts

Questions over Mojtaba's health intensified after he issued only a written statement on March 12 to acknowledge his appointment, rather than appearing on television or in public.

'I don't know if he's even alive. So far, nobody's been able to show him,' US president Donald Trump said last week. 'I'm hearing he's not alive, and if he is, he should do something very smart for his country, and that's surrender.'

Iran has rejected that line outright. Foreign minister Abbas Araghchi insisted that 'the Leader of the Revolution is in complete health and is fully managing the situation.' No images or video of Mojtaba have been released to back that up, and Tehran has not provided medical details, leaving a vacuum that others are filling with conjecture.

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed on Friday that Mojtaba was 'wounded and likely disfigured.' He pointed to the written statement as evidence something is being concealed, saying Iran has 'plenty of cameras and plenty of voice recorders. Why a written statement? I think you know why.' His comments, too, are based on intelligence briefings that have not been made public, so nothing is confirmed and all such claims should be treated with caution.

Adding to the fog, Kuwaiti outlet Al-Jarida reported that Mojtaba was secretly evacuated from Iran for emergency surgery after suffering injuries to his legs, hand and arm. Citing what it described as a 'high-ranking source close to the new Iranian Supreme Leader,' the paper said he had been flown to Moscow on a Russian military transport plane and operated on inside one of Vladimir Putin's presidential residences, with the procedure described as 'successful.'

None of that account has been independently verified. Neither the Kremlin nor Iranian authorities have commented on the supposed evacuation. For now, his exact condition and location remain matters of competing narratives rather than established fact.

Past Treatment Abroad and Claims of Impotency

It is not the first time Mojtaba's health has been a topic of diplomatic gossip. According to US embassy cables released by WikiLeaks, he struggled for years to father children with Zahra, and allegedly made repeated trips to London for medical treatment.

Cables allege that Mojtaba was 'so soft' that he required at least four visits to the Wellington and Cromwell Hospitals, including one two‑month stint, before Zahra finally became pregnant. One dispatch stated that he had been 'expected by his family to produce children quickly, but needed a fourth visit to the UK for medical treatment; after a stay of two months, his wife became pregnant.'

Those documents, written by US officials and never intended for public view, read more like informed gossip than hard medical evidence, but they have fed the narrative that the new Supreme Leader has long-standing health issues affecting his private life. Tehran has not publicly addressed the claims.

The same leaked material, reported by outlets including the New York Post, also alleged that before marrying Zahra, daughter of former Majles speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, Mojtaba entered into two 'temporary marriages.' This controversial but legally recognised practice in Iran allowed him, as one report put it rather crudely, to 'get some practice in the sack' before his permanent union. The cables suggest his marriage came 'relatively late in life' because of an impotence problem that was only 'eventually resolved' after three extended visits to the UK.

Again, none of this has been corroborated by medical records or Mojtaba himself. The picture of a leader whose most intimate struggles were monitored and archived by foreign diplomats is based entirely on second-hand reporting and historical leaks.

Gay Rumours, Intelligence Files and Political Humiliation

More incendiary still are new allegations about Mojtaba's sexuality. The New York Post reported that during a recent intelligence briefing, Trump 'couldn't contain his surprise and laughed aloud' when presented with documents indicating that Iran's new Supreme Leader 'might be gay.' Other senior officials at the meeting found the material 'hilarious,' with one unnamed intelligence figure said to have 'chuckling about the situation for days.'

The alleged intelligence, as relayed in those reports, suggests that Mojtaba, sometimes dubbed 'the power behind the robes,' may have had a long-term sexual relationship with his childhood tutor.

The accusations do not stop there. Mojtaba has also been accused of making 'aggressive' sexual advances towards male staff while recuperating from the injuries sustained in the February airstrike that killed his father. The New York Post argued that 'the fact that this was elevated to the highest of high levels shows you there's some confidence in this.'

There is, however, no independent corroboration of those claims. No documents have been released, no witness has gone on the record, and Iranian officials have not responded publicly to the gay rumours. In a country where homosexuality is punishable by death, such allegations are hardly neutral. They serve a political purpose, attempting to undermine the religious legitimacy of a man whose authority rests on a conservative reading of Islamic law.

Between the whispers about impotence, the reported trips to discreet London clinics, the talk of 'temporary marriages' and the latest claims of secret male lovers, Mojtaba's private life is being turned into a battleground. With no verified footage of the new Supreme Leader since the airstrike, even the most basic question of how he is faring physically remains unanswered, and until Tehran chooses to show him to the world, speculation about the man now ruling the Islamic Republic is likely to grow louder rather than quieter.