Brooke Magnanti, Anonymous Blogger, Revealed: British Scientist Is Belle De Jour, Former Prostitute

LONDON — A British scientist says she is Belle de Jour, the anonymous blogger whose accounts of life as a call girl were turned into books and a TV series.

Brooke Magnanti was quoted by the Sunday Times as saying she decided to reveal her secret because she was afraid an ex-boyfriend would expose her.

Magnanti, 34, is a child health researcher at the University of Bristol in western England. She told the newspaper she turned to the sex trade in 2003 while finishing her Ph.D. and worked as an escort for more than a year.

She blogged about the experience in the guise of Belle de Jour, a legal secretary who moonlights as a sex worker.

The blog formed the basis of three books and the British TV series "Secret Diary of a Call Girl," shown on Showtime in the United States.

Debate swirled about whether the anonymous author was real or fictional, and Belle de Jour was accused by some of glamorizing prostitution.

Magnanti said on her blog Sunday she was relieved "to be able to defend what my experience of sex work is like to all the skeptics and doubters."

Magnanti said her scientific colleagues had been "amazingly kind and supportive" about the news. The university said her past was not relevant to her current job.

Her publisher, Orion, said in a statement that it was "a courageous decision for Belle de Jour to come forward with her true identity and we support her decision to do so."

Comments

[ICorpsDoc]

08:30 AM on 11/19/2009

On a few of the Amsterdam forums that deal with working gals there was for years posts about a very popular sex worker. She worked out of a window and also as an escort.

Very popular and very nice according to the many posts.

And many of the posts mentioned her working on her graduate thesis.

She got the degree.

She may still be out there working a little but I have not seen a post about her in at least 2 years.

[imusintheevening]

01:00 AM on 11/17/2009

Stories like this are published to get readership­, nothing more. Most women make men pay for sex in one way or another.

[rbryanh]

10:48 PM on 11/16/2009

Who says a lady's reputation is unlikely to improve?

[cplKlyde]

10:04 PM on 11/16/2009

Love Billie as a redhead

[bibimimi]

02:05 AM on 11/17/2009

Billie is lovely, and kix ash.

[Amishguy]

01:32 PM on 11/17/2009

I liked her better as a blond. (but I'm not complainin­g)

[Cuyahoga]

10:04 PM on 11/16/2009

I say - so what people. Let's move on. Very little to see her other than a woman who took control of her own life. Good for her!

[quincyyyyy]

10:34 PM on 11/16/2009

If you call letting people pee on you for money (which happened to her) taking control of your life then you have some issues.

[MmeFlutterbye]

11:25 AM on 11/17/2009

Oh give it up! She has always been in control of her life. She made her own choices. That's more than can be said for women who drudge through life supporting lazy men, political wives who stand by their deceitful husbands, sexually harassed female workers... and so on. Brooke Magnanti happens to life...lif­e doesn't happen to her.

[lilnyc]

09:35 PM on 11/16/2009

Kudos to taking the power out of the hands of blackmaile­rs. I liked the series, by the way.

Too bad that smart people like her have to turn to "sex work" in the first place. That has to be dangerous, eg. the Craigslist Killer.

[eamitch430]

07:35 PM on 11/16/2009

You mean she was actually working her way through school?

[quincyyyyy]

10:35 PM on 11/16/2009

If having sex for money is working then tell me how a straight guy can get a job like that.

[GoDogGo]

07:10 PM on 11/16/2009

If people knew how common this was among women in universiti­es today, they'd be shocked.

[LegalCodex]

07:16 PM on 11/16/2009

A girl I knew had the motto: "why give for free, what guys will pay for." She ended up graduating with no debt, unlike many of her peers, plus she had a great time.

[Phalanxman]

11:54 PM on 11/16/2009

The opposite credo is, "Why pay for what you can get for free?" Guys have been mooching off their girlfriend­s for decades to get through college.

[GrownupStewie]

08:42 PM on 11/16/2009

how else do you think a woman who has little job experience­, not much time on her hands (because she has classes and studying to get her degree), needs to start rather quickly without much training, pays for college?

Its really sad, but these woman can make alot of money relatively fast by selling sex...for maybe an hour or two a night a girl can become an escort, pocket anywhere from 400-6000+ a night, and go to bed knowing she wont have trouble buying that economics book that costs 600 bucks..

sex and modeling are the only two profession­s where a woman always makes more then a man...

im not supportive of it, but im also not going to look down on a girl who is an escort to pay for an education.­...

[the steamer]

12:47 AM on 11/17/2009

What about women that pay the rent or pay for their kid's food with prostituti­on?

[KingofDetroit]

06:19 PM on 11/16/2009

Prostituti­on: LEGALIZE IT!

[dizzypdx]

02:45 AM on 11/17/2009

Regulate it and tax it.

[Winning09]

05:41 PM on 11/16/2009

Billie Piper is Rose on "Doctor Who!"

[pipetoe]

05:21 PM on 11/16/2009

See education obviously isn't everything­.

[dorkenergy]

04:30 PM on 11/16/2009

Props to Magnanti; therapy for her ex-boyfrie­nd.

[TotalRecall9]

03:53 PM on 11/16/2009

Courageous­? More likely for glorificat­ion. That's not courageous­!

[soisay]

05:06 PM on 11/16/2009

Not courageous­, just "check-mat­e" against a sleazy ex-boyfrie­nd. Never trust a man. Of course, once cornered, very courageous to pick the honest and transparen­t way out, and face a potential firestorm, loss of her privacy, loss of job, loss of prestige, loss of family respect, loss of friends. It is good that these things did not happen to her, as would often happen in the US along with infinite sleazy lewd passes by low-life American men.

[LegalCodex]

07:14 PM on 11/16/2009

Not all American men are low-lifes, just the ones outside of new england :).

[MarsAmbassador]

03:50 PM on 11/16/2009

I have no problem with what consenting adults get up to on their own time, provided they don't hurt anyone else. More power to her.

[mergina]

03:21 PM on 11/16/2009

A girl has to make a living. Perhaps we should legalize prostituti­on in this economy.

[the steamer]

12:50 AM on 11/17/2009

Even in a good economy does every woman get a job?