A British scientist says she is Belle de Jour, the anonymous blogger whose accounts of life as a call girl were turned into bestselling books and a TV series.
Brooke Magnanti, a child health researcher at the University of Bristol in western England, says she decided to reveal her secret because she was afraid an ex-boyfriend would expose her.
Magnanti tells the 'Sunday Times' that she turned to prostitution through a London escort agency after she ran out of money in the final stages of her PhD thesis six years ago. She decided to write about her experiences in the guise of Belle de Jour, a legal secretary who moonlights as a sex worker.
"I was getting ready to submit my thesis. I saved up a bit of money. I thought, I'll just move to London, because that's where the jobs are, and I'll see what happens."
"I couldn't find a professional job in my chosen field because I didn't have my PhD yet. I didn't have a lot of spare time on my hands because I was still making corrections and preparing for the viva and I got through my savings a lot faster than I thought I would."
When she could no longer afford her rent, she "wanted to do something that didn't "require a great deal of training or investment to get started, that's cash in hand and that leaves me spare time to do my work in."
But once she started, she kept it up even after she had another job at one point "because it was so much more enjoyable."
"I've felt worse about my writing than I ever have about sex for money," she says of her experience a prostitute for more than a year.
Debate had swirled in recent years about whether the author was or had ever really been a call girl because of the quality of the writing.
Belle de Jour was also criticised for glamorizing prostitution after the writings formed the basis of three books and the television series 'Secret Diary of a Call Girl.'
"Anonymity had a purpose then - it will always have a reason to exist, for writers whose work is too damaging or too controversial to put their names on," she says. "But for me, it became important to acknowledge that aspect of my life and my personality to the world at large. I stand behind every word with pride."
A British scientist says she is Belle de Jour, the anonymous blogger whose accounts of life as a call girl were turned into bestselling books and a TV series.
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