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Aubrey Plaza has landed her next starring role courtesy of Rachel Sennott. Sennott has co-written a script about Heidi Fleiss, the infamous “Hollywood Madam” who became a television personality after running an upscale prostitution ring. Per Variety, Sennott’s co-writers on The Heidi Fleiss Story are Travis Jackson and Leah Rachel, who will make her directorial debut on the feature. Plaza, who will also produce the project, will play the madam herself, natch.
In the ’90s, Heidi Fleiss made a fortune managing a sex work operation that reportedly catered to famous and powerful clientele. She was convicted on charges related to prostitution in 1994, though her conviction was later overturned. (She ended up serving time for tax evasion later in the decade.) Variety reports that the script “follows Fleiss before trial, scrambling around Los Angeles trying to blackmail and leverage various connections to get the case dropped, with the help of an aspiring young writer named Jaclyn.” Sounds like a perfect part for Rachel Sennott, though there’s no word if the writer-performer will also appear in the film.
Fleiss was the subject of a 1995 documentary appropriately titled Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam; the 2008 doc Heidi Fleiss: The Would-Be Madam Of Crystal (about her failed attempt to open a brothel catering to women in Nevada); and the 2022 podcast series HeidiWorld: The Heidi Fleiss Story from the journalist Molly Lambert. Maggie Cohn (The Staircase) was reportedly working on a drama about Fleiss, but last year the ex-madam told The Hollywood Reporter that the project wasn’t moving forward. Instead, yet another documentary series about Fleiss was announced from director Andrew Renzi (The Curse Of Von Dutch: A Brand To Die For, Untold). Apparently, she was excited to do the project as a way to fund her efforts to create a sanctuary for herself and the more than 30 macaws in her care. The doc will reportedly range in topics from her time as a madam, her battles with addiction, and her commitment to rescuing exotic birds. “I think people are sick of the docs that are infomercials—and I’m not an infomercial,” Fleiss told THR. “I don’t care if someone likes me or hates me. I’m not now trying to reinvent myself or be seen as someone I’m not. People will see and hear the truth. Some [of] it is humiliating.”
