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PROFILE: BELLE DE JOUR:DR BROOKE MAGNANTI admits to being “something of a master in the art of compartmentalisation”. That’s a bit of an understatement. Because for the last six years, the 34-year-old Bristol-based research scientist (her specialism is developmental neurotoxicology and cancer epidemiology) has successfully concealed the fact that she worked as a London “call girl” and wrote a wildly explicit blog, under the pseudonym Belle de Jour, chronicling her experiences, writes FIONOLA MEREDITH
The blog, subtitled “The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl”, was an instant hit, and awards, book deals, newspaper columns and a television series (starring Billie Piper) based on Belle’s adventures soon followed. For years, there has been intense speculation about her identity, and titillated literary detectives came up with writer Toby Young, chick-lit novelist Isabel Wolff and former editor of the Erotic Review Rowan Pelling as possible candidates. (The final consensus seemed to be that it was probably a balding middle-aged man amusing himself.) But while other secret sex bloggers, like Zoe Margolis, the writer of Girl with a One Track Mind, were outed and their true identities exposed, Belle has remained determinedly incognito – until now.
