Who Is Zola? The true Story Behind the Movie and the Twitter Thread

If you’re on Twitter in 2015, you probably remember the wild story of “Zola” — and now the viral Twitter thread is a real movie! The real story behind Zola it is the kind of thing that even Hollywood could not do. How much truth and how much of it was embellished by Twitter, however, is still up in the air. See the teaser above, then read on to see what we know of the true nature of history.

The main source for the version of the film Zola it is “Zola Says it All: The True Story Behind the Greatest Stripper Saga Never Twitter“a Rolling Stone article of November 2015 by the journalist David Kushner. The short version of the story: Aziah “Zola” Wells, then a waitress at Hooters, she met Jessica, one of their customers, and we ended up going on a wild road trip to Florida that involved stripping, prostitution, drugs and murder. Although Wells admitted to embellish some details to get more attention, she insisted to Rolling Stone she did it for a good reason: “I’ve done the people who probably don’t want to hear a sex trafficking story they want to be a part of it, because it was entertaining.”

In the course of a 148-tweet thread, Wells recounts how, after joining with Jessica on both of the strip club dancers, she traveled to Florida with Jessica, her boyfriend Jarrett, and a man who turned out to be her pimp and was only for the “z”, According to the Wells of the account, what began as a dance or concert quickly became two of them being prostituted by Z. “I never thought that would happen to me,” he said Rolling Stone, adding, “I didn’t want to leave [Jessica] for her… [and Z] I knew where he worked and where I lived.” In your thread, which details how it took new photos and put up a new ad for Jessica to attract more paying customers, and how, eventually, Jarrett found out what Jessica was doing, and both he and Z were angry: Jarrett was upset about the prostitution, Z was angry about the girls go behind their back and make more money.

The history of the rest of the night it changes depending on who asked for it, and the Rolling Stone the article covers the perspective of each one. Jessica claims that only Zola was on call the rest of the night, and it was the topic of what happened next. The wells of the thread tells us a much more dramatic story: while she tried to talk Jarrett of trying to “save” Jessica, Jessica was in what she thought was a special request call, but it turned out to be a rival pimp trying to “buy” from Z, which leads to a violent confrontation. Jarrett’s version of that night does not imply that the rival pimp, but claims that there was no violent confrontation. Any way, Jarrett and Zola to the left, and Jessica refused to go with them.

Rolling Stone follow the rest of Jessica’s story: she and Z of the wound in which two more girls into the fold, to the well-known Jessica who had posted asking for help on Facebook after his car broke down. According to the article, Jessica claims the girls joined voluntarily, but the girls said they were forced and, ultimately, they were able to call the police and get Z arrested. When being interviewed, Jessica still insisted that Zola composed a large part of the viral load of the story, but also admitted, “I was helping other girls to be put in that situation, and as someone who has been sexually abused, why would I do that? All I can say is that I was, literally, a washing of brain by Rudy.” That is the only thing that everyone involved with the story seemed to hope would come from his high profile: increase awareness of trafficking in persons.