Francia James, a Playboy model-turned-Instagram sensation, has revealed what it feels like to sell sex, without actually having it, to an audience of several million – and it turns out that the job is more lucrative than starring in adult films.
James has built a formidable 2.4-million following on Instagram due to suggestive, nearly-naked snaps. Born in Colombia and now living in Florida, James was working as an aesthetician when she and a friend of hers started taking pictures that made her online popularity skyrocket.
She featured on Playboy Africa’s cover in May of this year and could well have followed the path of many women who eventually switch from modelling to porn.
“Most of my followers ask me all the time, ‘When are you going to do porn?’ I have sexy stuff on my page but I don’t see myself going into porn,” she said. “Right now, I’m very happy with my Instagram and how it’s going.”
This stance does make sense: apart from the obvious lack of privacy, adult film actors are estimated to earn up to $2,000 per scene or day, while social media activity pays much better – but the job is also challenging.
“I didn’t expect it to be as much work as it is. With all this money it’s constantly go go go but it’s amazing how much you can do with this, if you want to do it,” says James.
“I usually get paid $1,500 for a post and companies don’t just book you for one, they book you for a couple of stories and posts for that same company. It’s good money.”
Like many other internet personalities, she is forced to keep churning out content to stay afloat and keep people interested.
In the past several weeks, the social media star posted videos in which she is dancing in a food store wearing a revealing bikini with Cookie Monster from Sesame Street, and doing squats with an alligator on her shoulders. Her thirst for content (and apparently the massive hype around HBO’s Chernobyl series) has taken her to the site of the nuclear disaster, where she posed near the Duga over-the-horizon radar.
But the video that propelled her to international headlines was an attempt to pose for a photo with a frisky elephant that instead tried to rip off her bikini. It turned out, however, that the beast had been tricked into “groping” the woman.
“I drove for 10 hours with a friend of mine to see the tigers and elephants, to post about them,” she recalled. “We wanted the elephant to grab my booty but she didn’t want to do it. The elephant trainer had special candies the elephant liked, so we put it under my bra and that’s how it happened. It looked like she was grabbing my boob but really she was just looking for her candy.”
“That video has been all over the world; over 20 to 30 million people have seen it. That video has brought me a lot of work. The elephant grabbing my boob has been my best video so far.”