Brooke Magnanti

Brooke Magnanti, 7 June 2010

Born Brooke Magnanti
(1975-11-05) 5 November 1975 (age 38)
New Port Richey, Florida, USA

Pen name Belle de Jour, Taro

Occupation

Nationality

Notable work(s) The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl

belledejour-uk.blogspot.com

Brooke Magnanti (born 5 November 1975) is a research scientist, blogger, and writer, who, until her identity was revealed in November 2009, was known by the pen name Belle de Jour. While completing her doctoral studies, between 2003 and 2004, Magnanti supplemented her income by working as a London call girl. Her diary, published as the anonymous blog Belle de Jour: Diary of a London Call Girl, became increasingly popular, as speculation surrounded the identity of Belle de Jour, and whether the diary was real. Remaining anonymous, Magnanti went on to have her experiences published as The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl in 2005 and The Further Adventures of a London Call Girl in 2006. Her first two books were UK top 10 best-sellers in the nonfiction hardback and nonfiction paperback lists.

In 2007, Belle's blogs and books were adapted into a television programme, Secret Diary of a Call Girl, starring Billie Piper as Belle, with the real name Hannah Baxter. In November 2009, reportedly fearing her real identity was about to come out, Magnanti revealed her real name and occupation as a child health scientist.

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Born in the United States of Italian and Jewish parents, Magnanti was born and grew up in Clearwater, Florida. She graduated from the private Clearwater Central Catholic High School, where she became a National Merit Scholar, in 1992.

She entered university at the age of 16, going on to receive a B.S. in 1996 from Florida State University. Relocating to the United Kingdom, Magnanti studied for a master's degree in genetic epidemiology, and Ph.D. in forensic science from the University of Sheffield in England. The Ph.D. thesis was submitted in 2003 and her doctorate awarded in 2004.

Her pseudonym recalls the 1928 novel Belle de jour by Joseph Kessel and the 1967 film of the same name starring Catherine Deneuve, directed by Luis Buuel. In the film, "Belle de Jour" is an expression translating literally as "daytime beauty", as Deneuve's character frequented the brothel during the daytime, when her husband was absent from home. The expression is a pun on the French phrase "belle de nuit", which translates as "lady of the night", i.e. a prostitute.

The weblog Belle de Jour: Diary of a London call girl first appeared in October 2003 and won the Guardian newspaper's Best British Weblog 2003, in the second year of the award's existence. There was speculation in the media for several years as to the real identity of the author, whether Belle really was a call girl. Guesses as to who Belle was ranged from Rowan Pelling to Toby Young according to The Telegraph. Book contracts, copyright, and author payment were handled not under a real name but by the company Bizrealm Limited in order to maintain anonymity. In 2004 The Sunday Times featured a front-page headline incorrectly identifying Sarah Champion as the author of the blog based on erroneous textual analysis by Don Foster.

According to The Guardian a fellow British blogger guessed her identity in 2003 but kept it secret. He made a page on his blog containing the googlewhack of Belle de Jour and Brooke Magnanti that allowed him to see if anyone googled the two names. In 2009 he identified IP addresses originating from Associated Newspapers that had accessed the page at which point he contacted Magnanti to alert her. Around the same time tabloid reporters had been escorted from the hospital where she worked for breaking into her office.

On 15 November 2009, The Sunday Times revealed in an interview that the author's real name is Brooke Magnanti, who was 34 years of age at the time. The Guardian's Paul Gallagher described it as the revelation of "one of the best kept literary secrets of the decade". The Daily Telegraph's Stephen Adams said it had been "the new millennium's equivalent of the 1980s' search for the golden hare". Such was the nature of the secret, Magnanti's work colleagues did not know until one month before she went public, her publishers had been unaware of her true identity until the previous week and her parents found out on that weekend. After signing her first book deal and starting writing articles for newspapers, only two other people were aware of her identity, her agent Patrick Walsh and her accountant, who handled the financial transactions via a shell corporation. Magnanti commented that she had thought a former boyfriend was on the verge of outing her, and later reported him to the police for threats and harassment against her and her partner.

Writing on her blog on the day of the revelation, Magnanti stated: