A TikTok Stripper Got 1.9 Million Followers With Her Wild Stories. But Are They True?

Imperial has said repeatedly in her TikToks that she works private parties, not at clubs; she also has an OnlyFans, where she largely sells censored nudes for $15 a month. Most of the dancers Rolling Stone spoke with said it’s fairly uncommon, though not unheard of, for dancers to exclusively work private parties, because most privates are booked through connections made at clubs. Imperial’s website also doesn’t allow potential patrons to book her, and her Instagram, where she has 181,000 followers, doesn’t promote upcoming appearances, as is the case for many dancers. She also doesn’t appear to follow the local clubs in her area, nor do they follow her, as is common in the industry. “I don’t see how it would be possible for her to advertise and make money off private parties during a pandemic,” says Bebe Gunn, a Minnesota-based dancer. “And if you are, that’s irresponsible to boot.”

Sex workers have also flagged some of the terminology Imperial uses in her videos. In one TikTok, for instance, Imperial refers to showing up center stage at a VIP room at a private party. A sex worker who says she went to high school with Imperial, who now goes by the name Luna, says there’s usually no stage in VIP rooms at clubs, and she has never heard of there being a stage at private parties, which are typically held in hotel rooms or private residences.

The biggest red flag, however, is the timing of Imperial’s dancing career. On TikTok, Imperial says she started stripping when she was 17, even though many state laws dictate that the legal age to dance at licensed establishments is 18 years old (at clubs that serve alcohol, dancers usually have to be 21). Most employers will require extensive documentation, including government identification, to confirm that a dancer is of age, for liability reasons if nothing else. While it’s not impossible she would have been employed by a private company while she was underage, it is unlikely, according to the dancers Rolling Stone spoke with.

Grace Zhao, who attended middle school with Imperial, used to follow Imperial on her (now-deleted) second Instagram account. On April 30th, when Imperial was still a senior in high school, she published a post on her stories that said, “Plans after high school: Become a stripper.” The Instagram story was posted the same month that Imperial started telling stories about her exotic dancing job on TikTok. “It wasn’t really adding up,” says Zhao, who provided a screen-grab of the post to Rolling Stone, as well as yearbook photos to corroborate their connection.

Perhaps more to the point, according to five people who went to school with Imperial whom Rolling Stone spoke with, she has a history of making outrageous or unfounded claims. One of the individuals, Daniela, whose name has been changed to protect her privacy, was a year ahead of Imperial at a trade high school, where Imperial concentrated in cosmetology. (Daniela and her sister, who corroborated details of Daniela’s account, provided photos of themselves with Imperial to back up their connection.) Daniela recalled that during her junior year, in 2018, Imperial told people in high school that she was suffering from stage 5 cancer. “She said, ‘I can never have kids, I can never have tattoos,'” Daniela says. “Then I come to see all these pictures and she has a giant tattoo [on her arm]. It’s just weird to me, all these lies.”

Luna, 19, says that at the beginning of ninth grade, Imperial told her that she had lung cancer. At first, Luna says, she and her friends believed her: “I just didn’t think she’d lie about something like that,” Luna says. Then, months later, Imperial told her friends her cancer had progressed. Luna was suspicious. “I had a grandma who died from cancer, and she didn’t have any signs of that. She didn’t have signs of chemo or radiation. She didn’t miss school,” says Luna, who posted the allegation as a TikTok on her page. “There was really nothing.” (Luna and Imperial had a falling-out during Imperial’s freshman year over the cancer claims, Luna says: “She had asked me why I stopped being her friend. I told her it was because I didn’t like people who lied about things like that.”)

In the comments on Imperial’s page, at least two people who claim to have gone to high school with her, who have not spoken with Rolling Stone, have echoed this allegation, saying she lied about having had cancer. Imperial has not directly responded to this claim, and some of the commenters allege that Imperial has blocked them on TikTok and deleted many similar comments.

Luna also says that Imperial used to tell other, more minor mistruths, such as inviting her over to her house for her birthday when it wasn’t actually her birthday. Another former friend, who asked to have her name withheld for privacy, says that Imperial once told her that her house had been featured in a magazine and that she regularly had celebrities over. The friend says she brought it up with Imperial’s mother, who denied that the house had been featured in any magazine article. “[Imperial] just said she was kidding, but of course she had just gotten caught in a lie,” the friend says. (Zhao, who attended middle school with Imperial, says she actually remembered seeing the house in a magazine article once, though she couldn’t recall which publication it was.) As for Imperial’s accent, all five of the people Rolling Stone spoke with who knew her said they’d never heard anything about a speech impediment.

@itsimperialNot a completely eventful story, but one of my favourite ones #fyp#foryou #this #was #fun #tho #like #funtimes #haha #go #cry #about #it♬ stan sister mary eunice – kylie ✨

“If you’re being coerced into dancing or being trafficked, like she said, that’s a dangerous situation, and she needs help,” says Gunn. If untrue, however, “she’s bringing more stigmatizing harm against my community at a time when social media is in an active war against sex workers.”

Ultimately, this is at the crux of why many dancers are upset with Imperial: Though it is far from uncommon to fabricate or embellish stories about oneself on the internet, she has managed to carve out a wildly successful niche for herself in an ecosystem that is, to many sex workers, suppressive at best and hostile at worst.

In addition to social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram, which have been accused of shadow-banning sex workers simply by virtue of their profession, TikTok has been accused of censoring content that contains references to sex work, even if the work in question is legal or does not otherwise violate community guidelines. Most of the sex workers Rolling Stone spoke with said that one of their videos had, at one point or another, been taken down by TikTok, for everything from using the word “stripper” to showing off their work shoes. To evade TikTok censorship, many sex workers will intentionally misspell words like “sex” or “stripper” in their videos or usernames. “It’s really frustrating to see someone who may potentially be lying about the industry have a giant platform with a ton of minors when we’re trying to normalize what we do and we get censored by TikTok and Instagram just for being sex workers,” says Gunn. (A representative for TikTok tells Rolling Stone that sex workers are not censored for using such terminology in their videos, though the app’s Community Guidelines prohibit “content that commits, promotes, or glorifies sexual solicitation.”)

Those who knew Imperial are confused and frustrated by the persona she’s built for herself on her page. Daniela and Imperial aren’t in touch anymore, but if they were, she says, the first thing she would ask her is: Why all the lies? “She’s such a beautiful person with amazing makeup skills,” says Daniela. “She could do so many other things with her life. She could be positive and do makeup videos, but instead you’re trying to be somebody who you’re not. You end up being trapped in this person you want to be, and it ends up consuming you.”

From Rolling Stone US