A 2014 Jordan Peele Tweet Turned Out To Be A Nope Spoiler In 2022

The internet is forever and Jordan Peele is the latest celebrity to have old tweets resurfaced — but don’t worry, fans are only dragging up a 2014 tweet from Peele to show that the director may have released a major plot point from his new film, Nope, years ago. Proceed with caution, as this post contains some spoilers for Nope.

The tweet in question says, “Dreamt that a baby chimp attacked some people then ran to me and hugged me all scared,” which super-sleuth fans are realizing is similar to what happens to Steven Yeun’s character, Ricky “Jupe” Park, in the film. The tweet from November 2014 continues, “I woke up with tears streaming down my face #bruh.”

In the film, a chimp named Gordy goes on a violent rampage on the set of the fictional film Gordy’s Home!, while Jupe’s character — a young boy at the time — watches in fear before the chimp finds solace with the boy. Not only does it resemble Peele’s tweet, but it’s also apparently based on a true story from 2009 when a chimp named Travis severely injured a woman and left her disfigured. Travis had been domesticated since he was three days old and raised like a child — even wearing clothes and eating meals at the dining table — in the home of Stamford, Connecticut resident Sandra Herold. The chimpanzee was known for his appearances on TV, including in Old Navy commercials — a parallel to how Nope’s fictional Gordy was treated before his outburst.

On the day of his attack, Travis escaped from Herold’s home, and then mauled her friend, Charla Nash, outside of the house while she attempted to help coax him back inside. Herold tried to stop the attack by stabbing the 200-pound Travis with a butcher knife, but he was ultimately shot and killed by a police officer called to the scene. Nash sustained permanent disfigurement on her face, hands, and body, and was blinded by the incident.

Though Peele’s tweet doesn’t reference the real-life incident, it does speak directly to events of the film. Following the multimillion-dollar theatrical opening of Nope, fans are responding to Jordan’s tweet with tongue-in-cheek replies about turning “this dream into a movie.” Another user joked, “Oh wow that sounds scary , you should write a script about that.” Others are taking a page from Peele’s book and committing to starting their own dream journal to write down their own bits of potential genius.

Peele himself hasn’t commented on the years-old tweet, but he has spoken about his other inspirations for the film. “I was inspired by films like King Kong and Jurassic Park that really deal with the human addiction to spectacle and the presentation and monetization of that,” he told the Associated Press. Gordy’s plight in the film can be interpreted as man’s instinct to exploit others for the sake of money, as some have argued.

In any case, we’ll be watching Peele’s Twitter feed much closer, just in case he decides to slyly give us hints about his next film project.