A former teacher’s assistant quit her day job to take up twerking full time.
During an interview with Barcroft TV , 22-year-old Jessica Vanessa knew that she was taking a risk by seeing if her twerking videos would take off. Now, the former teacher’s assistant has more than 2 million followers on Vine, more than 87,000 followers on Twitter and more than 500,000 followers on Instagram . And she’s making more for her twerking than she was for her teaching.
“What I make in six seconds would take me four months to make as a pre-K teacher at work.”
Changing her career from teacher’s assistant to “professional twerker” has been beneficial for her in many ways.
“I don’t necessarily want to say my income, but I can tell you this. I bought a new car, paid it off in full, and I was able to get out of debt from my school that I graduated from.”
But Vanessa admits she wasn’t always like this. She was actually pretty shy in her younger years.
“I’ve always had it in me — the dancing, the twerking. I guess I didn’t really break out of it until my middle school years. And then once I hit high school, it was a wrap from there. Everybody in high school knew me as the party girl.”
On her Twitter page, Vanessa clarified that she wasn’t actually a teacher before she started twerking for a living.
I worked at a daycare and labeled a teacher. I didn’t “teach” Them anything, I wiped butts and cleaned noses from 8-5…..
— Jessica Vanessa (@_JessiVanessa) October 14, 2014
So yeh I think I made the right move — Jessica Vanessa (@_JessiVanessa) October 14, 2014
The former teacher’s assistant also mentioned that she’s not a fan of the labels that she has been given now that her story has been making headlines.
“‘Professional twerker,’ ‘Vine superstar.’ Probably the most ridiculous, stupidest names I ever heard. I ain’t s***.”
Vanessa admitted that since her twerking career took off, she has received a lot of criticism.
“People like to define twerking as ‘You’re a whore if you do it.’ No, it’s just a type of dance; that’s it. If you were open-minded, you would understand that.”
The former teacher’s assitant also revealed that she almost gave up twerking because of the comments she has been receiving.
“I do get plenty of comments — rude comments, mean comments. I’ve had two breakdowns where I just wanted to delete all of my social networks.”
But the former teacher’s assistant said her family supports her career change.
“When it comes to my twerking, they’re very open-minded people. They don’t look at it as degrading; they don’t look at it in disgust. They’re very supportive.”
[Images credited to YouTube via E! Online ]