Belle de Jour Revealed?

I didn’t know anything about Belle de Jour until the TV show, with Billy Piper playing the high class call girl, hit the screens.  Paul and I would watch it regularly – there was something quite appealing about watching the life of an educated, complicated sex worker unfold.

Belle de Jour remained anonymous which is an achievement considering the popularity of her blog  ‘Diary of a London Call Girl’, the books she’s published and the TV series.

Now she’s stepped forward and into the spotlight as Dr. Brooke Magnanti.

Is this a ploy by previously anonymity conscious Belle? A media attention grabber hoaxer?  Or perhaps the truth?

Dr. Magnanti is a research scientist.  Petite, pretty and super intelligent, Brooke claims to have begun her call girl career when she was short of rent money in London.  She took a job at an escort agency and earned £300 per hour as a working girl for 14 months.

She began blogging about her secret call girl life after an amusing incident she felt worthy of writing about.  And that was the beginning of the literary career which has seen 4 books hit the bookshelves with at least another one in the pipeline.

What do you think?  Should Belle have remained anonymous? Is Brooke really Belle?

You can read Dr. Brooke Magnanti’s interview with Times online.