Belle De Jour Unmasked

So the ultimate lady blogger of mystery has been unmasked. The writer of “The Diary of a London Call Girl” has revealed all.

I first discovered her just after I began blogging. In that pre-dawn semi-darkness between Usenet and true blogging. One of my usenet acquaintances, long since disappeared into the past, had her on her blog roll. In the course of checking all the entries on this, the first blogroll I had found, Belle de Jour stood out.

Not for the subject, which was titillating and fascinating it its own right, but for the quality of the writing which was that deceptively simple readable style which is so very difficult to achieve. For several months I was a regular reader of her work. For the writing, of course. Not that there were any pictures on Belle de Jour’s daintily scurrilous blog 🙂

Always there was the wondering about the identity of this obviously highly paid escort worker. She had been blogging for a number of years and had already had one book of her posts published out in the real world. Another book was in the pipeline and there was talk of a TV series. All about the life of this well hidden author.

My blogging confidence grew, I stopped visiting her, even removed her from my own blogroll and she faded into my past as so many cyber people do. The TV series eventuated and interest in her identity grew.  Until this past week.

Reading the BBC News I found that, about to be unmasked by a tabloid, she had stepped in ahead of time and spilled all to one of the weekend broadsheets, thus positioning herself invulnerably upmarket, where she will undoubtedly stay.

Just who is she?

She is Brooke Magnanti, 34, Florida State U graduate student of informatics, epidemiology and forensic science. Brooke moved to England to study as a postgraduate student and between 2003 and late 2004 she wrote anonymous blogs under the title Diary Of A London Call Girl. Brooke is now a research scientist in Bristol.

The report in the Daily Mail suggests that in the perfect literary world of Belle de Jour, Brooke insists she thoroughly enjoyed her naughty sideline as a high-class escort girl. Others, though, might now be considering that her ability to compartmentalise her parallel lives as research scientist, student girlfriend, college oarswoman and London escort girl was, at best, emotionally distant and at worst glacially cold.

Read more here and here