zReportage.com Story of the Week #747: TUESDAY July 28, 2020: LIFE OF ZAI, by ZUMA Press Newspaper Tampa Bay Times Photographers Martha Ascensio-Rhine, Tailyr Irvine and Reporter Jay Cridlin who worked closely together on a story thats sees a local singer with big dreams keep getting close to stardom. Then her body and mind start to fail her. Jay Cridlin met Zai in August 2017. He followed her at home, in hospitals and through all nine months of her pregnancy, witnessing seizures, breakdowns and personality shifts along the way. He shadowed her at gigs, in the studio and during auditions for American Idol and America's Got Talent in Tampa, Orlando and Tallahassee. He reviewed hundreds of pages of medical, police and public records and interviewed more than two dozen friends, family members and experts on her life and conditions. Welcome to: LIFE OF ZAI
© zReportage.com Story Summary: zReportage.com Story of the Week #747: TUESDAY July 28, 2020: LIFE OF ZAI, by ZUMA Press Newspaper Tampa Bay Times Photographers Martha Ascensio-Rhine, Tailyr Irvine and Reporter Jay Cridlin who worked closely together on a story thats sees a local singer with big dreams keep getting close to stardom. Then her body and mind start to fail her. Jay Cridlin met Zai in August 2017. He followed her at home, in hospitals and through all nine months of her pregnancy, witnessing seizures, breakdowns and personality shifts along the way. He shadowed her at gigs, in the studio and during auditions for American Idol and America's Got Talent in Tampa, Orlando and Tallahassee. He reviewed hundreds of pages of medical, police and public records and interviewed more than two dozen friends, family members and experts on her life and conditions. Welcome to: LIFE OF ZAI

VONABELL HURST (ZAI) takes her turn at the lit backdrop provided for contestant hopefuls during the 'America's Got Talent' auditions at the Tampa Convention Center. Her story? That’s harder. She knew what producers wanted to hear. They want a nice narrative, a feel-good story they can sell. But the ones who don’t make it have a story, too. Zai has tried to sculpt hers to a sound bite.
© Tailyr Irvine/Tampa Bay Times via ZUMA Wire

VONABELL HURST (ZAI) fills out paperwork before her audition during the 'America's Got Talent' auditions at the Tampa Convention Center. It was one thing when she auditioned for Idol as a 16-year-old vocal prodigy, when she seemed destined to make it to Hollywood, the next big pop singer out of Tampa Bay. It was another at 22, when she got even closer, only to break down at the finish line.
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VONABELL HURST, 24, who goes by the name ZAI, sings during a recording session at Clear Track Studios in Clearwater. She’s talented. She has a vocal range of several octaves and can sing jazz and opera as well as rock and country, though her specialty is pop that leans alternative. She sounds like Halsey, a singer born one week later in September 1994, who has since recorded several No. 1 singles and hosted Saturday Night Live.
© Tailyr Irvine/Tampa Bay Times via ZUMA Wire

VONABELL HURST (ZAI) cries in her apartment, after hearing about the death of a friend. Zai has gotten closer than most singers like her ever will. She’s auditioned for American Idol six times, The Voice four, America’s Got Talent three, The X Factor once, and has on several occasions made it fairly far.
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Notebook papers with lyrics from a song Vonabell Hurst (Zai) wrote about the death of a friend sit scattered across her couch in her home. Although still young and vibrant, Zai's life and career has already been marked by more heart-break than many twice her age.
© Tailyr Irvine/Tampa Bay Times via ZUMA Wire

VONABELL HURST (ZAI) records songs for her album at the Clear Track Recording Studios. She wore antlers to signify she was recording as her alter-ego Heidi. Zai is not famous. Not outside her 35,000 Facebook and Instagram followers, or the tiny clique of fans, her 'Zaimbies,' who follow her to bar gigs around Tampa Bay. But she looks and acts like she should be.
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VONABELL HURST, aka ZAI, reacts to her first visit with a doctor upon learning she's pregnant at Morton Plant Hospital in Clearwater. Seated by her hospital bed are her father, STEVEN SHERMAN, and friend PATTI ORIOT. Her doctor told her that due to her medical history, including her miscarriages, she said, her pregnancy might be considered high-risk. She was told to tone down her movements.
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VONABELL HURST (ZAI), walks along a corridor at her apartment complex, with her service dog, a Belgian Shepherd named, 'Fire' in Dunedin. One morning last spring, Zai took a mighty pull from her weed pen, hacked and deflated into the couch. She’d had a seizure. She is fit and lithe, but her body pops and cracks like she's 50. She's torn muscles, dislocated bones, suffered concussions. Bruises dot her arms and legs. The only thing that keeps her pain and anxiety bearable is a near constant intake of medical marijuana. It makes her feel 'real and human.'
© Martha Asencio-Rhine/Tampa Bay Times via ZUMA Wire

VONABELL HURST who goes by ZAI gets emotional outside her apartment complex in Dunedin. Zai wanted to be famous. But she also wanted to be stable. And for a while, she did not see a child, however unexpected, changing any of that.
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VONABELL HURST, who goes by ZAI, smiles as she looks over her ultrasound photos during a routine visit at All Children's Hospital. Zai is due to give birth in October, to a boy she plans to name, 'Robin.'
© Martha Asencio-Rhine/Tampa Bay Times via ZUMA Wire

VONABELL HURST (ZAI), watches an old performance featured on YouTube, from when she was 13 years old and sang with a Christian rock band called 'Killing Sorrow,' through her former church, New Purpose.
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Friend and advisor, PATTI ORIOT, goes over a questionnaire with VVONABELL HURST (ZAI). The questionnaire is part of required paperwork for the American Idol auditions the next day.
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VONABELL HURST (ZAI), holds a DVD with her featured on the cover. At the time, Hurst used her given name at her manager's suggestion, citing its uniqueness. The dvd features Hurst's story and was used for a charity event at St. Joseph's Children's hospital where she would sing to children.
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VONABELL HURST (ZAI), coats her eyelashes with mascara while she does her makeup prior to her American Idol audition in Tallahassee. Zai has had thousands of seizures, she said, some back to back, as many as 100 in a day. Only after months of intense psychiatric and neurological testing did a neurologist offer a diagnosis that made sense: psychogenic non epileptic seizures, or PNES.
© Martha Asencio-Rhine/Tampa Bay Times via ZUMA Wire

VONABELL HURST who goes by ZAI, waits to audition for American Idol at the Donald L. Tucker Civic Center on the Florida State University campus in Tallahassee.
© Martha Asencio-Rhine/Tampa Bay Times via ZUMA Wire

From left: VONABELL HURST (ZAI), LIANNE MCCONNELL, NATHALY VALDIVIA and ERICA TROMBLEY all wait to be called up to audition for American Idol at the Donald L. Tucker Civic Center on the Florida State University campus in Tallahassee. At nearly 25, an elder among thousands of Idol virgins. No matter how she shapes her story, she ends up facing questions she can’t answer on a form, that don’t fit in a 90-second montage.
© Martha Asencio-Rhine/Tampa Bay Times via ZUMA Wire

VONABELL HURST (ZAI) performs at 'Mugs N Jugs' bar in Oldsmar. Zai didn’t watch reality singing shows. But her mother saw in them an opportunity to take her daughter national. At 14, she auditioned for America’s Got Talent in Orlando. Didn’t get it. Two years later, in September 2010, they flew to Los Angeles for American Idol. We love your voice, they said. We just think you could develop more.
© Tailyr Irvine/Tampa Bay Times via ZUMA Wire

VONABELL HURST (ZAI) records songs for her album at the Clear Track Recording Studios.
© Tailyr Irvine/Tampa Bay Times via ZUMA Wire

VONABELL HURST (ZAI), holds her newborn son, ROBIN, at her home in Dunedin.
© Martha Asencio-Rhine/Tampa Bay Times via ZUMA Wire