Mystery is now clear as a Belle (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Mystery is now clear as a Belle

8:16am Friday 20th November 2009 in

• Skip social links
• Print
• Email
•  

Belle de Jour, the infamous prostitute-turned-blogger, has finally unmasked herself, in the shape of research scientist Dr Brooke Magnanti.

It’s strangely disappointing to find out that the mysterious Belle is just what she was advertised as – an intelligent, attractive professional woman in her 30s. I think I was half-hoping she would turn out to be a fat bloke called Barry from Wolverhampton, who was having a right old laugh at the expense of the internet community and publishing world.

Dr Magnanti, under her pseudonym, shot to fame with her no-holds-barred blog detailing her life as a call girl, which was later made into a TV drama starring Billie Piper.

A couple of years ago, I interviewed Belle, just ahead of the TV show. Ah, you might say, so if you interviewed her how come you didn’t know she was not, in fact, a fat bloke called Barry from Wolverhampton?

That’s because the interview was conducted by e-mail, via her publishers.

Belle had Yorkshire links, we had learned from her blog and her books, and she professed some small knowledge of Bradford – she said she was something of a regular at a curry house next to a mortuary, which local knowledge tells us must be the Kashmir.

It was a slightly strange interview, because you can’t do the usual interviewing technique of following up questions or butting in when there’s something interesting. It was a case of question, answer, question, answer.

What made it more interesting, of course, was that there was no evidence I was actually swapping e-mails with Belle de Jour at all – or, come to that matter, any evidence that she actually existed.

There was a brief rumour that the whole Belle de Jour thing was a stunt by the novelist Martin Amis, and I asked her that. She responded: “Hah, I wish! I'd probably relax and enjoy it more. And Martin Amis definitely has better teeth than mine.”

Belle’s teeth – and the rest of her body, which readers of her blog had become familiar with in a purely literary way – were a mystery at the time. Not any more.

I can understand the reasons why she “outed” herself – there was apparently an ex-boyfriend in the wings about to blow her cover in the national press.

But I can’t help feeling that it’s something of a shame, because I liked the idea of the anonymous blogger.

Not only that, there’ll probably be quite a lot of men with “Brooke” listed in their mobile phone address books feeling pretty nervous right now...