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Jarrett And Jess Finally Tell Their Sides Of The Infamous 'Zola' Story

by Taylor Ortega
Instagram/Twitter

The Zola story has quickly become a modern classic.

Its original storyteller, Aziah King, is living it up as the Homer of Twitter, trademarking golden phrases like “We vibing over our hoeism or whatever” and “Pussy is worth thousands.”

Two of her main characters, Jess and Jarrett, are concerned with getting the truth onto the Internet following King’s portrayal of them as a pair of derailed messes.

Jess, who comes across in King’s story as a woman relentless in her thirst for trap money and a victim of an illegal trade that preys on and profits off women, shared her side of the story on Reddit this weekend.

Her account (buckle up, it’s a long one) paints King as the one who prostitutes, and unsuccessfully at that.

Let's start by saying that the beginning of Aziah's story is about the only part of her story that is somewhat true. I did meet Aziah while eating at Hooters. A good friend of mine and I were eating when she walked by at the time with long hair and her hooters uniform. She looked amazing so we called her over. I guess you could quote Aziah on the fact that we were 'vibing on our hoeism or whatever' seeing as how she was showing me her a full nude blog that she runs under the name Zola. In a picture I noticed a red and silver sequined thong. Being a dancer myself I recognized it immediately. We began talking about how long we've been strippers and what Detroit clubs we've worked in. I admitted to dancing in basically every club on the 8 mile strip since 18 years old explaining that I go where the money is. She informed me that she was a dancer at trumps. I was getting ready to leave and tables were getting full so we exchanged numbers and parted ways. I contacted Aziah about a day later to tell her I had a job interview at the same Hooters and as she said I invited her to come down to Florida with me to dance (believe it or not most strippers do travel and stick together). Like Aziah's story she had her things ready by 8:00pm and was indecisive because her fiancé was not wanting her to go. However the thing that got in the car with myself and the man we will continue to call 'Z"'(not even close to his name) was not the same Aziah I picked up in the bar days before! This girl walks out in some basic leggings and torn shirt with a short nappy wig on that, excuse my language, smelled like ass! I gave her a break and assumed she knew how to clean up well and that she only looked like this for the hours we'd be in the car. The entire encounter in the basement of my house is false - nothing to be said. Fast forward to actually being in Florida and as she said we were stuck in a really janky motel. Welcome to Tampa during Spring Break! No nice hotels had vacancy for the week. Aziah and I wanted to hop right into the money so we got ready for work that night while Jarrett found the numbers to clubs for us. We got out, had dinner at J Alexander's with 'Z' and yes his fiancé! We then dropped Jarrett off and got dropped off ourselves at the Gold club. I was given paperwork immediately to sign and hired on spot and Aziah, who hadn't clean up like I'd hoped, had to audition. Reason to be a jealous bitch number one! It's true that this club was completely off their rocker we had to wear nude nipple covers and have our butts covered and to top it off there were a million and one rules on how to acquire a back room. Within an hour or two I made only $100, not something I was pleased, with and Aziah had made one dollar. Reason to be a jealous bitch number two! I could tell she was highly uncomfortable so I called 'Z' and had him get us. He told us like Aziah said that his fiancé had had a slow night as well and we were going to pick her up at the club she works in. (FYI she doesn't live in Florida not own a house) We waited until about 4AM before Jarrett completely blew up my phone. Knowing Z he instantly said I never went to a club I had to of been 'trapping' and as the story explained Jarrett is quite the emotional fella. There was no making him realize clubs in Tampa run till 5am. I was not trying to deal with that so I booked a new hotel room for the night. Z and Aziah get to talking and she explains basically that all she does at work is extras (aka prostitution) and all she wants to do for money is lay on her back and take it. So I'm like cool I don't care what this girl does support the naked hustle. I'm not one to tell a bitch what to do with her body. So she downloads a texting app and goes straight to work. I'm handling the phone, she gives me the prices of $80 short stay (10 minutes), $100 half hour, and $120 for an hour. I said ok and I wait on clients. The night was dead for her. The only client who came, saw her and walked out. We went to bed and I wake up to my phone again buzzing like crazy I look and of course it's Jarrett! He had posted on my Facebook that I suck old man dick for money. My family is seeing and commenting on this so I flip. That's when he tells me he gave all my stuff to a bum and was going for a walk. Hell no. So I call Z and we head over to the motel. Z snaps and makes Jarrett delete the post and finds my things which are under the bed. As I have his phone it starts blowing up and we see that not only is everyone from our hometown texting him asking about the post but also a drug dealer from Tampa was texting. Z asks who he is and Jarrett explains that he told a random guy on the street his girlfriend is a prostitute and coming home with all kinds of money to pay for what the guy had fronted him. Z freaked out had him on the floor crying and admitting to being a bitch. He told him to grab his sh*t and start walking. Like the original story Jarrett starts punching himself in the face slamming his head off walls crying and acting a total fool. Z says since people know that we're dancers and that at least one girl was trapping we need to leave immediately and they would break in assuming there's money in the room. We drove over to the hotel his fiancé was staying in and again Aziah got to selling herself. While we all walk around the hotel we get back after her first call an old Chaldean man she made $80 cool. Next they're asking for an outcall she agrees so we get in the car and head out. On the way there the texts start to get odd they begin asking if there's more than one girl because his friends are over. We say no and continue to try to understand his broken English. We get there and Aziah heads in. She never texts Z the code word (Gucci) to let us know that she was okay, got her money, and would be out soon. So I knock on the door. The door flies open to a room full of half-naked Mexican men and Aziah's pathetic ass already naked. I asked if she was good and if she'd gotten her money (what should have been $100 from each guy). She explained they refused to pay upfront and that she couldn't understand them much. I look at her with this ‘could you be that dumb’ kind of look, throw her clothes at her, and demand she get back in the car before she gets herself killed over a few hundred dollars. She gets in the car and Z is furious screaming at her the entire way. We get back to the hotel and things are calm. She gets another outcall. A hotel across the street in room 111. We drop her off for what was supposed to be an hour and since we were across the street did leave. We come back 45 minutes later and Aziah won't answer and again we realize we never got the code text. Z and I run inside and head up to 111 they open the door and Aziah isn't there. I start blowing her up and hear her phone through the door of 101. I can hear her talking so we assume she's ok. Z had me knock on the door. This giant and I truly mean giant black male opens the door and smiles. I said “I'm here for Zola?” He laughs and closes the door behind me. I'm a mom so I'm freaking out at this point. Aziah is in the back bedroom. I walk in and there's beds on beds in this room! Each one covered in Michael Kors and all kinds of name brands. Working in Detroit I knew what was going on immediately!! I grab Aziah and tell her she's an idiot and the man is a pimp! A large scale one at that. I grab her things and we start rushing out and of course seeing as how he's the size of a sky scraper he stops us and won't let us leave. Eventually I get the door open and run making as much noise as possible. No smart pimp will chase in a hotel and make a scene. Aziah is right behind me and we see Z and Jarrett. Crying, I explain the situation and unfortunately that's where my story of drama runs dry. There were no hand guns nor any murder. Z called the police and said a pimp was living there and tried to kidnap his daughter and her friend and hung up. We return to the hotel and Aziah is on the phone again. I said 'Hell no, you're done! We're almost dying and you've made $80 today. F*ck you.' Jarrett and Aziah fall asleep and I tell Z they both need to take their psycho asses home. Z buys them tickets for the next flight out. I play dumb and head to bed. Z wakes them up 6am the next morning like here your sh*t is packed, you gotta go! Jarrett I'm taking your phone with you runnin your mouth. Jarrett freaks! Starts crying again begging me to leave with him saying I'm all he has blah blah. Z cracks up out of nowhere because Jarrett’s ex is calling under the contact name of "my love". I answer it and sit on the balcony talking to her learning quite a bit. That's when, yes, Jarrett for the 50th time in our relationship threatens suicide and swears he's gonna jump off the balcony. Z just grabs him and takes him to the car. So sorry no crazy cliff hanger here - or in this case balcony hanger. They were sent home I enjoyed my last day in Florida at the pool and headed to the next state to see my daughter thanks to Aziah's money haha. So all in all like my Twitter says I give Aziah a round of applause on her creativity. After years of a blog and trapping this girl finally got some attention.

Jarrett, depicted in the original tale as an emotionally fragile threat to the group's safety, tweeted his recollection of the events as they occurred in March.

He insists “both them bitches was trapping,” in a story that, you guessed it, is lengthy and appears to have been typed by his chin.

Jarrett also links to photos of Jess’ Backpage ad from a site called Bitches of Backpage.

In the background of one of the photos on the ad, a woman who appears to be King can be spotted, likely in an outfit meant for stripping, but she is not advertised as part of the Backpage “deal.”

King tweeted a confirmation she wasn’t trapping down in FL, not that it fah-reak-ing matters.

In both Jess' and Jarrett’s retellings, no one is shot in the face, and Jarrett is not punished for his loose lips by having to watch Z and Jess get nasty.

Even if the tamer accounts are true, I can’t say I care. Jess’s story is uneventful and soaked in scorn and bias while Jarrett’s is borderline unreadable without inducing a seizure.

King’s story, be it fact, falsehood or reckless embellishment, is an easy read that is, at every moment, hilarious and horrifying.

Complex even pieced together a film trailer based on King's perspective.

UNOFFICIAL TRAILER The #Zola Story coming to a theater near you. https://t.co/uByWRspf3x https://t.co/e1gepuC1Uh — Complex (@ComplexMag) November 2, 2015

The Zola story remains the Florida Trap Saga of choice.