AZiah Kings Twitter tale of a strip-club road trip gone awry is now a big buzzy movie.
Now shes ready to make her story her own again.
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Its Zolas first night out in a while.
After a five-year wait, the movie will premiere at the end of this month.
Is a strip-club tour a little too thematically consistent?
She wants to show me that no story about her life is a match for the real thing.
Theyre best friends, NiChelle, 46, tells me with a big, beaming smile.
Imherbest friend, Zola jokes.
NiChelle laughs and drapes her arm around her daughters shoulders and pulls her close.
You see how she do me?
They agree to share a filet mignon.
Something about this night feels exceptional.
Zola asks on the car ride over.
Yall too extra, Zola says, frowning skeptically.
Their conversation starts with basic pleasantries, nothing special.
Amira is friendly maybe more cheerful than the other dancers weve spoken to.
She tells us about herself (Lebanese, a student of chemical engineering).
Just when were entranced, its time for her to walk away.
Okay, ciao, Amira chirps with a tip of her beret and a flirtatious waggle of her fingers.
Thenboom: Smitten switch flipped.
Somehow Amiras pheromones cut through the smell of decades-old bar-crowd sweat and booze and find their receptors in Zola.
Did you hear that?
She goes, Ciaaao!
This is what Zola liked about dancing: being someones Amira.
All eyes on her.
She would dance and leave it all on the floor, like it was therapy.
I couldnt dance, I swear.
At least not yet and not in them shoes!
But the owner was like, Youre cute, and hired her.
Im a bit risque, she says with a laugh.
So she sublimated her need for attention into dancing at clubs in Detroit.
When Zola danced, they would share locations on their phones so NiChelle could double-check Zola was safe.
Even the dancing was different.
Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.
Nothing like what the girls do now.
Zola interrupts herself and grabs her mothers arm.
This is our song, this is our song!
After, Amira comes over to us.
Amira isnt her real name she wont give us that.
We gush and fawn.
Men always promise to change your life, and they never do, she adds mysteriously.
We all stand there contemplating what that means.
Its something Zola has been considering, the idea of someone or something being an agent of change.
She has had half a decade to wonder what will happen onceZolais finally released in theaters.
People keep asking her, she says, Are you ready for your life to change?
a question filled with a promise shes sick of waiting for.
Singles shower down on two of the most beautiful, softest, least engaged women Ive ever seen.
This is a perk of being hot enough to dance at Magic City: low participation, high reward.
Zola estimates that $400 has accumulated on the floor in the few minutes weve been standing here.
I could never dance here, Zola says.
Its a whole different level, the way they inspect you.
She did make the cut at one Atlanta club, the Cheetah.
She auditioned with a friend who wasnt hired because her feet were too big.
Zola doubles over laughing at her own story.
Zola made the most money as a dancer when she traveled to clubs in different states.
They got set up in a hotel room with a burner phone and a Backpage ad.
The story gets more grim and more absurd from there.
Its a first-person account of sex work that is equal parts harrowing and funny.
Its kind of long but full of suspense.
Shes an internet baby, she says.
We was figuring out the computer.
Myspace shifted to Tumblr, where she would post poems and lyrics.
Zolas good at the internet, but what really set her story apart was her writing.
She was profane and smart.
She was observant, captured dialogue, and landed jokes.
(A favorite part: He goes wow u even set up ur friend.
U such a ho so they arguing for hours.
I leave & go down to the pool.
I mean, i am in florida !)
By the time she was halfway through her tweet thread, she couldnt get her Twitter to load.
She scrolled back up and saw that she had thousands of retweets.
4 above ISIS, as she toldPapermagazine in a later interview.
I was like,Why is my name above ISIS bombing Syria?
What is going on?
She joked about it then.
They screenshot shit to each other.
They done found burner accounts.
Im like,Oh, no!They done found my sister.
They done found the Backpage ads.
I was like,Whoa, she says, dropping into her Twitter persona.
Zola watched with increasing incredulity as celebrities like Missy Elliott and Solange tweeted about her.
She watched as BET and Complex and MTV wrote about her.
She saw a tweet from director Ava DuVernay that erroneously said she was from the hood.
(Zola tweeted back, Ima suburban bitch.
Stil love you tho.)
The thread got rated on Goodreads, made it to Longform.
Some praised her cinematic writing, while others criticized her for possibly lying.
(Oh, she had something to say to those people.)
It launched hot takes, think pieces, memes, and literary critiques.
This crazy experience happened to her and then suddenly stopped belonging to her.
Her true story was about to become content that was based on a true story.
As we drive home, Zola turns on the cute little EP she recorded over the pandemic.
(Shes a Pisces.)
I was like,Aint nooo way.
Zolas 2-month-old, ZaZen, is sleeping nearby.
Her 4-year-old is peering down from upstairs, hoping for cheese.
Zola has been here since May 2020.
When the pandemic hit, she was waitressing in Detroit until the bar closed.
She was pregnant; she didnt think she could make rent.
She started an OnlyFans because Mom, she calls out, plug your ears!
theres this huge niche for pregnant porn.
She kept busy recording music and writing, but it wasnt the kind of busy she was hoping for.
She went to parties where she met Issa Rae, Kelly Rowland, and Tessa Thompson.
She wore fabulous hats.
Now were just sitting ducks.
I hate this, she whines with dramatic flair.
Zola doesnt mean to sound self-pitying, but damn, its been a long road of stops and starts.
After the attention from the Twitter thread came the offers.
It was instantaneous, she says.
She declined: I appreciate art, but youre not getting free labor.
Then a William Morris agent flew out to Detroit to meet with them.
Oh, I did not like him, NiChelle interjects from where shes sitting in the kitchen.
Who is telling this story, Mom?!
Well, he was bougie!
He didnt even let us pick him up from the airport!
And Im like, Im always hot.
They decided to take their time considering offers.
It was published less than a month after the tweets went viral.
Zola remembers liking him.
He spent 12 hours with her and her family.
She took him to her Hooters and answered every question and told him every story.
I thought,Okay, baby.
We can be friends.
But then she didnt hear much from him.
The article came out.
It was accurate, she says in a monotone.
She liked the story at first enough that a page from it is framed on the mantel.
Hollywood loved the story.
And securing life rights isnt always necessary.
Some subjects are left on the outside.
Initially, producers seeking to option the thread were told it couldnt be done.
Its not based off of a fuckingRolling Stonearticle.
Stop saying that shit.
Zola met with Franco in February 2016.
Her family had moved out to California, about 40 minutes outside Los Angeles.
(Coincidentally, they had already planned to relocate.)
I trusted him, she stops and shakes her head.
Look at me, she says with some surprise.
I trusted him, though.
When she walked on set, he was reading the encyclopedia, like a fucking weirdo, she recalls.
And then we started talking, and he was more intrigued with me than I was with him.
She remembers that he asked her lots of questions.
And Im like, Stop.
And hes like, So youre only 20, and you just did what?
And you just … oh my gosh.
Im like, What?
Mr. Franco, get out of here.
I wondered about a white guy, but he listened, she continued.
He said, I never heard no shit like that, and I said, I know you havent.
Youre some rich white man.
We dont live in the same reality, but Im glad you know that.
We still made him wait, NiChelle adds from the kitchen, where shes making drinks.
I first met Zola the day after she met with Franco.
At the time, I was interested in following her journey through the Hollywood machine.
Even then, she seemed like someone who wouldnt let the industry eat her up.
(They ultimately declined to go forward with the show.
Absolutely, she interrupts firmly before I even get the question out.
Thats why I get frustrated by it, because it really didnt amp up anything.
People wondered if Zola would be part of the process, as so many real-life subjects are not.
So Zola waited in California for a bit, eventually moving back to Detroit with her then-husband.
She had her first daughter who is now 5.
She bought a house.
She waited for the movie deal to be finalized.
The show was canceled before Zolas episode aired, though she still got paid.
She got a divorce and tweeted about the process.
She kept bartending and waitressing because thats what you do while you wait for your break.
The time in between checks, you got to do something, she says.
People would sometimes recognize her at work.
I looked a mess.
I dont put my lashes on all the time, she says.
Id have my smock on, peach schnapps on my pants.
But they would still ask for selfies, invite her out, and ask for follow-backs on Instagram.
A lot of dancers would thank her for telling her story and representing them.
Meanwhile, she wasnt really hearing much about the movie.
I actually thought it wasnt going to happen, for a minute, with him.
And then she heard people were adding material to her story, though she hadnt been contacted.
I was like,Okay, its feeling real slave trade up in here.
I dont like this.
And yall just keep rewriting and remixing my shit is giving me nothing.
(Franco denied the allegations and settled an ensuing lawsuit in 2021.)
Im like,Maybe its just not meant to be.Thats how I was thinking, she says.
After that fell through, for a little moment, I was over it.
I was like, Can we talk about something else now?
Turner-Smith remembered Bravo had wanted it she had tried to option the article in 2015 but was outbid.
Bravo then sent a 4 a.m. email to her agent.
Bravo knew it wasnt guaranteed she would get to direct the movie.
Her first film,Lemon,had just premiered.
But she was a Black woman.
Didnt that give her some edge in this situation?
The finished film, to its credit, pulls off that exact balance.
Harris and Bravo wanted to capture the spirit of Zolas narrative.
Bravo chimes in, I was like, This is Ibsen.
This is my adaptation of Ibsen.
This is me adapting Heiner Muller.
This is me adapting Chekhov.
Its me adapting Shakespeare.I want to treat it the same way I would any of those texts.
This is myHamlet,right?
In fact, when I think aboutHamlet,I think about Heiner MullersHamlet,right?
Which is so fucking delicious to me and so abridged.
I told her, Girl, you should have just DMd me!
This was the first time since 2016 that anybody had interviewed her.
She came in and saved the day with her pretty little cape.
They went through the story tweet by tweet, filling in the gaps.
Of course, I had them, Zola says.
Bravo wanted Zola to have a role in decision-making and, just as important, credit.
During her negotiations to come on as director, Bravo fought for Zolas writing to be credited.
As for monetary compensation, NiChelle handled those discussions before Bravo and A24 were even involved.
Zola was paid life rights, though NiChelle wont give exact figures.
Were not rich, she tells me.
For Bravo and the current producers, it was a moral mission to include Zola.
Bravo and others suggested that the five-year delay, though frustrating for Zola, was ultimately to her benefit.
Only in the past few years have the gatekeepers in Hollywood slowly begun to change.
She feels a little bad about that now, but it is what it is.
The thing that always struck me about her is that she was just a great writer.
Thats how I saw her.
I was watching, like,How do I feel?
I had to get used to someone else saying my words.
I kept asking my mother, Is this how I sound?
After that screening, Bravo asked what she thought.
Zola couldnt give her blessing right away, she says.
She needed to process it.
On her second viewing, Zola decided, Okay!
She liked Taylour Paiges portrayal of her.
She found a montage of penises particularly funny.
I pulled Jessica out of there.
I was a little traumatized.
It wasnt just because it was her tweets and her words.
Its that shes ready for her story to be hers again.
If Zola is nervous about how the film will be received, she doesnt let on.
Like, Oh, maybe she just had daddy issues.
Im like, I dont got none of that.
I just wanted to dance.
A lot of us just wanted to dance.
Its not always violent.
At NiChelles house, Zolas baby, ZaZen, is waking up, and she needs to feed her.
Everything hasnt really changed, I guess.
I mean, more people know me.
More people want to interact with me, she says.
Thats enough for me.
If nothing else changes, knowing Solange Knowles told me to keep doing what Im doing?
I mean, stop playing.
I would love to do something like a series because, like I said, I have 1,000,010 stories.
You have no idea.
Working in the club, Ive seen some wild shit.
I would love to tell them all at some point, maybe in book and film form.
(In mid-June, A24 will release her Tweet thread as a book with an introduction by Zola.)
I dont want to force anything, but Im open to whatever works, honestly.
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