Minneapolis fraudster (and Prince pal) sells memoir for movie starring Janelle Monáe

As a singer, Janelle Monáe is known for transforming herself from album to album. In a new movie, she’ll be transforming herself into a former Minneapolis woman.

Tanya Smith’s memoir, “Never Saw Me Coming: How I Outsmarted the FBI and the Entire Banking System — and Pocketed $40 Million,” has been sold to Universal Pictures and Monáe’s production company, Wondaland Pictures. Monáe is set to star and produce the movie, with Smith as an executive producer.

“Never Saw Me Coming” tells the wild story of Smith’s life of crime, which began when she was a teenager in north Minneapolis in the 1970s and ‘80s, hanging out with her pal Tyka Nelson, Prince’s sister. Using telephones and computers, she figured out how to contact celebrities, including members of Michael Jackson’s family, and then how to defraud banks. She spent more than 13 years in prison for her crimes (which also included two prison escapes) and, afterward, settled in the Los Angeles area with the youngest of her three children.

“This makes me feel fantastic,” said Smith, by phone from Los Angeles, where she was bicycling around a park, handing out sandwiches to unhoused people. “Readers and media have championed this for me. I just want to continue doing what I can to inspire people and help kids. I feel like that is my destiny now.”

Issa Rae, who supplied a cover blurb for “Never Saw Me Coming,” once intended to star in a film version but, when Smith spoke with the Minnesota Star Tribune last summer, she said rights had shifted and that an announcement was coming. Monáe, who is best known as a musician (and has sometimes been compared to Prince), has appeared in movies such as “Hidden Figures” and “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.”

In addition to the film, Smith said there is talk of both a TV show and a “Grand Theft Auto”-style videogame based on the book — all of which has her pinching herself.

“I never expected this kind of response,” said Smith. “I never saw this coming.”

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