The New York Times has just found out the true identity of "Kristen," the high-priced hooker that New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer met in February. Ashley Alexandra Dupré is 22, an aspiring R&B singer, the product of "a broken home" and, of course, gorgeous.
But she's so much more. The Times gets a great deal of its biographical data from Dupré's MySpace page, which is really quite something.
The objects of sex scandals once hid in shadows; for most of 1998, much of what we knew about Monica Lewinsky was second- or thirdhand, not from the source. We're in a different time now, of course.
Thanks to social networking, Ashley Alexandra Dupré comes to us a woman in full.
Excerpts from her MySpace bio:
When I was 17, I left home. It was my decision and I've never looked back. Left my hometown. Left a broken family. Left abuse. Left an older brother who had already split. Left and learned what it was like to have everything, and lose it, again and again. Learned what it was like to wake up one day and have the people you care about most gone. I have been alone. I have abused drugs. I have been broke and homeless. But, I survived, on my own. I am here, in NY because of my music.
And what about that music? Here's a link toher band's page. For 39 cents, you can buy Dupré's song "What We Want."
The lyrics go, in part: "Look in my eyes so I can see if you're for real / Can you ride with me boy?"
To give you a taste, press Play below. Yes, it is unsettling that she moans in the song; yes, you do wonder whether the governor is familiar with that moan.
Still, what bad could anyone say about a girl who loves Etta James? Ms. Dupré -- the Times informs us that her legal name is Ashley Rae Maika DiPietro, but hey, who cares what's legal anymore? -- doesn't connect to any other real people on MySpace, but she does list as her "friends" Madonna, Amy Winehouse, Mary J. Blige and Whitney Houston.
In a blog post she put up last August -- her only one -- Dupré describes her approach to relationships.
If you are in a relationship, and it is "doing absolutly nothing" for you, makes you feel bad about yourself or situations, just causing unessesary drama, and ruining things that you may actually care about ... why would you want that in your life?? you need to surround yourself with the people that make you feel good, and that will help you get to that next step in your life. that is what a relationship is all about ... growing and moving forward.
Though she tells the Times that the past few days have been rough, it's conceivable that the scandal could work out for Dupré. I imagine she could write quite a memoir -- she wouldn't even have to make any of it up.
Here's another pic of Dupré. There are more here.
[Photo credit: Ashley Alexandra Dupré's MySpace profile]
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