Ashley Alexandra Dupré
Encyclopedia
Ashley Rae Maika DiPietro (born Ashley Youmans; April 30, 1985) better known by the stage name
Ashley Alexandra Dupré, is a former call girl
. She is currently an American sex columnist for the New York Post
and a singer. She became a public figure when it was disclosed that she was the woman at the center of the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal
. In that capacity, she was known as Kristen, the name she used as a call girl
.
, New Jersey
, a borough near the Jersey Shore
. Her father, William Youmans, owned a landscaping
business and also worked as a salesman of surfing
accessories. When her parents divorced, Dupré moved to Wall, New Jersey with her mother, Carolyn Capalbo, and her stepfather, Mike DiPietro, an oral surgeon. There, she attended Old Mill (elementary) School and Wall High School
until her sophomore
year, when she moved to Kill Devil Hills
, North Carolina
, to live with her father. On her MySpace
page, Dupré described leaving home at age 17 to escape a broken family and abuse, but her aunt, Barbara Youmans of Seaside Heights, denied that Dupré had a difficult childhood. "She never had a bad life when she was growing up. She had the best of everything: bicycles, clothing, O'Neill
surf boards. ... She was always dressed to kill and got everything she wanted."
In 2004, at the age of 19, Dupré moved to New York City
in pursuit of a music career, and worked as a waitress at a dance club called Viscaya in the Chelsea
district of Manhattan
. She also worked at the clubs Pink Elephant and Retox. Jason Itzler
, who ran a New York escort service called NY Confidential from 2003 to 2005, met Dupré while she was working as a cocktail waitress at the Hotel Gansevoort in 2004. Dupré began working for him on the side, using the alias Victoria. NY Confidential was shut down and Itzler sent to prison by Spitzer's New York State Attorney General
's office in 2005. Dupré subsequently worked for NY Confidential's former CFO, who had opened Velvet Traces in Brooklyn.
Acquaintances stated that Dupre had expensive tastes, including Cartier
and Louis Vuitton
consumer goods and trips to Saint-Tropez
, France
. The sources also stated that several of her tattoo
s, in Latin
and Arabic
, were mantra
s to help keep her clean—including "What does not destroy me makes me stronger," "Protect your own," and "Never give up." None admitted suspecting that she was a sex worker, believing her statements that the cash for her lifestyle came from her wealthy parents. In 2006, Dupré changed her legal name
from Youmans to her stepfather's name of DiPietro, stating that she regarded him as "the only father I have known." In the same year, she answered an ad by the escort agency Emperors Club VIP
, and began working for the agency under the alias Kristen. By 2008, Dupré was living in a ninth-floor apartment in the Flatiron District
of Manhattan. She maintains that she was concerned about her ability to pay her rent after the man she was living with left following her discovery that he had fathered two children.
from New York's Pennsylvania Station
to Washington, D.C.
, for an assignation at the Mayflower Hotel
with New York Governor Eliot Spitzer
. The arrangements had been made by phone between Spitzer and a booker at Emperors Club VIP
, and were monitored by federal investigators who had initiated a wiretap after his bank had filed a suspicious activity report
regarding money transfers by Spitzer to a front company operated by the escort service.
Caught on the FBI's wiretap was Dupré's response to the booker's mention of other escorts' difficulties with Spitzer. "I don't think he's difficult," said Dupré. "I mean it's just kind of like, whatever, I'm here for a purpose. I know what my purpose is. I am not a … moron, you know what I mean."
On March 6, federal authorities arrested four individuals involved with Emperors Club VIP, charging them under federal prostitution
and money laundering
laws. Initial news reports and court documents did not identify the agency's clients or call girls by name, referring to Spitzer as "Client 9" and to Dupré as "Kristen".
On March 10, The New York Times
identified Spitzer as "Client 9." Two days later on March 12, the Times identified Dupré as "Kristen." Her mother, Carolyn Capalbo, told the newspaper that her daughter "was a young kid with typical teenage rebellion issues, but we are extremely close now.” Capalbo said she was "shell-shocked" when her daughter called to tell her she had been working as a prostitute.
Dupré's only public comment on the affair remained the brief interview with The New York Times which broke the story of "Kristen's" identity on March 12, in an article accompanied by photographs taken from Dupré's MySpace page. "I just don't want to be thought of as a monster," Dupré told the newspaper. "This has been a very difficult time. It's complicated." On the day the story broke, she posted a message to her MySpace
page that said "Yeah, I did it"; it was later changed to read, "Thank you for your support, it means a lot to me." Dupré uploaded a second song to the Amie Street
online music store around 2 a.m. on March 13. On March 14, New York City radio station Z100
played one Dupré song.
While Dupré remained in seclusion in the days after her role in the scandal became public, she became the subject of increasingly intense media coverage. The Village Voice
called her "the most famous hooker in America", and the New York Post
published an extensive photo shoot showing Dupré in provocative poses. By March 18, Dupré's profile on MySpace had received over 9 million page views. Dupré was reportedly offered US$1 million by Hustler
magazine to pose nude, and received offers from Penthouse
magazine and Vivid Entertainment
.
It was not clear if Dupré would use her notoriety to gain modeling, interview, sit-com cameo
, or reality television
opportunities. According to Andy Greene, assistant editor at Rolling Stone
magazine quoted in Advertising Age
magazine, "If she was in the studio with a producer, her voice is not that much worse than Britney Spears'. ... It's not inconceivable that she could have a song as good as the stuff on the charts. ... It's a really tough road for her to have a music career because she's a prostitute. ... She had sex with Gov. Spitzer, and that's fascinating to a lot of people. But people ultimately want to read her book or see her interviewed by Oprah or Barbara Walters. They don't want to listen to her third or fourth song."
On March 19, the soft porn website Girls Gone Wild
featured teasers of Dupré, shot in Miami Beach, Florida
in 2003 before she had turned 18. Dupré presented the company the drivers license of a New Jersey woman named Amber Arpaio, claiming it was Dupré's own. Company founder Joe Francis
—who served a year in jail for a conviction of child abuse and prostitution involving filming two underaged girls in Panama City, Florida, in 2003 who had represented themselves as adults—prepared to release a full DVD of Dupré footage from company archives. "All nude images of Ms. Dupre were taken in public places and contain no sexual contact," said Francis. "In Florida, where Ms. Dupre was filmed, the law allows even women under the age of 18 to be filmed nude with their consent."
Dupré's attorney, Don Buchwald, argued in an e-mail to Girls Gone Wild, "It was because she was underage that [Francis] sent her home on a Greyhound bus back to North Carolina. It would be outrageous at the very least to play the video of an underage female on the Internet."
On April 28, 2008, Dupré filed suit against Francis and two of his companies alleging their exploitation of Dupré's name and image, seeking US$10 million in punitive damages, but in July of that year she decided to drop the suit after Francis released footage showing her agreeing to be filmed.
In December 2009, Dupré started writing an advice column in the New York Post
called "Ask Ashley".
In January 2010, Dupré appeared on the Howard Stern Show, where she discussed incidents ranged from her situation as a rape victim to how she preoccupied her mind when engaged in intercourse with men she was not attracted to.
She posed nude for the May 2010 issue of Playboy
magazine.
, in order to testify at court hearings related to the Emperors Club VIP
prostitution ring.
In July 2008, a woman named Amber Arpaio filed a federal lawsuit against Dupré for defamation and invasion of privacy
, claiming Dupré used her lost driver's license to appear on a "Girls Gone Wild" video. Arpaio also sued "Girls Gone Wild" founder Joseph Francis.
version of the song "Respect
" in the shower. "She had this huge voice for such a little girl", Cooper told MTV
, "and so I just kind of went in and said 'Hey, come upstairs when you're done with this, and let's work on some songs'". According to Dupré, she then toured and recorded with Cooper's band, networking with people in the music industry. In 2005, she formed a company named Pasche New York, an entertainment business intended to promote her music career.
In the summer of 2006, she made an appearance in a music video for the song "Pop Off", performed by rapper Mysterious.
Shortly after The New York Times
published their profile of Dupré, her single "Move Ya Body" set a record for how fast it commanded the top price on the music-download site AmieStreet.com
, reaching the site's maximum of US$
0.98 per download in five hours. Another single, "What We Want", was played more than 3 million times on the Internet after the scandal erupted. While some speculated that she may have earned as much as US$300,000 - US$1.4 million from download sales of her singles on Amie Street, others estimated her earnings at as low as US$13,720. Dupré's music came to be featured in mash up
YouTube
videos, blending her tracks with those of established artists.
Dupré reportedly is now being represented by music manager Jerry Blair, who formerly worked for Mariah Carey
, but record companies seem to be waiting to make a deal until Dupré's infamous reputation lessens.
reported that Dupré was engaged in talks about a proposed reality show with Handprint Entertainment, the same firm that managed the reality television
careers of Nicole Richie
and Pamela Anderson
, and that she was considering a move from New York to Los Angeles
. One of the concepts reportedly being considered was a dating program similar to A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila
. Dupré will reportedly be working with the production company Reveille Productions
(responsible for the TV shows The Office and The Biggest Loser
) to create a reality dating show based on the theme that everyone has skeletons in their closet.
Dupré appeared on 20/20 on Friday, November 21, 2008 where she was interviewed by Diane Sawyer
about her feelings about being an "escort," and the emotional effect it had upon her when the encounter with Spitzer was made public.
On July 10, 2011 VH1 premiered Famous Food
, a reality series featuring seven celebrities. Ashley came in third; first and second was given a partnership stake in the Lemon Basket.
Stage name
A stage name, also called a showbiz name or screen name, is a pseudonym used by performers and entertainers such as actors, wrestlers, comedians, and musicians.-Motivation to use a stage name:...
Ashley Alexandra Dupré, is a former call girl
Call girl
A call girl or female escort is a sex worker who is not visible to the general public; nor does she usually work in an institution like a brothel, although she may be employed by an escort agency...
. She is currently an American sex columnist for the New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
and a singer. She became a public figure when it was disclosed that she was the woman at the center of the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal
Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal
The Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal began on March 10, 2008, when The New York Times reported that Democratic New York Governor Eliot Spitzer had patronized a prostitution service called Emperors Club VIP...
. In that capacity, she was known as Kristen, the name she used as a call girl
Call girl
A call girl or female escort is a sex worker who is not visible to the general public; nor does she usually work in an institution like a brothel, although she may be employed by an escort agency...
.
Early life
Dupré spent her early childhood years in BeachwoodBeachwood, New Jersey
Beachwood is a Borough in Ocean County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough population increased to a record high of 11,045....
, New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
, a borough near the Jersey Shore
Jersey Shore
The Jersey Shore is a term used to refer to both the Atlantic coast of the U.S. state of New Jersey and the adjacent resort and residential communities. . The New Jersey State Department of Tourism considers the Shore Region, Greater Atlantic City, and the Southern Shore to be distinct, each having...
. Her father, William Youmans, owned a landscaping
Landscaping
Landscaping refers to any activity that modifies the visible features of an area of land, including:# living elements, such as flora or fauna; or what is commonly referred to as gardening, the art and craft of growing plants with a goal of creating a beautiful environment within the landscape.#...
business and also worked as a salesman of surfing
Surfing
Surfing' is a surface water sport in which the surfer rides a surfboard on the crest and face of a wave which is carrying the surfer towards the shore...
accessories. When her parents divorced, Dupré moved to Wall, New Jersey with her mother, Carolyn Capalbo, and her stepfather, Mike DiPietro, an oral surgeon. There, she attended Old Mill (elementary) School and Wall High School
Wall High School (New Jersey)
Wall High School is a four-year comprehensive public high school that serves students in ninth through twelfth grades from Wall Township in Monmouth County, New Jersey, United States, operating as part of the Wall Township Public Schools....
until her sophomore
Sophomore
Sophomore is a term used in the United States to describe a student in the second year of study at high school or university.The word is also used as a synonym for "second", for the second album or EP released by a musician or group, the second movie of a director, or the second season of a...
year, when she moved to Kill Devil Hills
Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina
Kill Devil Hills is a town in Dare County, North Carolina, USA. The population was 5,897 at the 2000 census.Nearby Kitty Hawk is frequently cited as the location of the Wright brothers' first controlled, powered airplane flights on December 17, 1903...
, North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
, to live with her father. On her MySpace
MySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
page, Dupré described leaving home at age 17 to escape a broken family and abuse, but her aunt, Barbara Youmans of Seaside Heights, denied that Dupré had a difficult childhood. "She never had a bad life when she was growing up. She had the best of everything: bicycles, clothing, O'Neill
O'Neill (brand)
O'Neill is an American surfboard, surfwear and equipment brand that was started in San Francisco, California, but soon moved down the coast to Santa Cruz. Some credit the company with having invented the modern wetsuit...
surf boards. ... She was always dressed to kill and got everything she wanted."
In 2004, at the age of 19, Dupré moved to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
in pursuit of a music career, and worked as a waitress at a dance club called Viscaya in the Chelsea
Chelsea, Manhattan
Chelsea is a neighborhood on the West Side of the borough of Manhattan in New York City. The district's boundaries are roughly 14th Street to the south, 30th Street to the north, the western boundary of the Ladies' Mile Historic District – which lies between the Avenue of the Americas and...
district of Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
. She also worked at the clubs Pink Elephant and Retox. Jason Itzler
Jason Itzler
Jason Itzler is an American businessman and convicted criminal. He was born Jason Sylk in 1967 of Jewish parents. In the 1990s he ran a phone sex business in Florida. He later served a prison term for importation of illegal drugs. In 2003-2004, he ran New York escort agency "NY Confidential" for...
, who ran a New York escort service called NY Confidential from 2003 to 2005, met Dupré while she was working as a cocktail waitress at the Hotel Gansevoort in 2004. Dupré began working for him on the side, using the alias Victoria. NY Confidential was shut down and Itzler sent to prison by Spitzer's New York State Attorney General
New York State Attorney General
The New York State Attorney General is the chief legal officer of the State of New York. The office has been in existence in some form since 1626, under the Dutch colonial government of New York.The current Attorney General is Eric Schneiderman...
's office in 2005. Dupré subsequently worked for NY Confidential's former CFO, who had opened Velvet Traces in Brooklyn.
Acquaintances stated that Dupre had expensive tastes, including Cartier
Cartier SA
Cartier S.A., commonly known as Cartier , is a French luxury jeweler and watch manufacturer. The corporation carries the name of the Cartier family of jewellers whose control ended in 1964 and who were known for numerous pieces including the "Bestiary" , the diamond necklace created for Bhupinder...
and Louis Vuitton
Louis Vuitton
Louis Vuitton Malletier – commonly referred to as Louis Vuitton , or shortened to LV – is a French fashion house founded in 1854 by Louis Vuitton. The label is well known for its LV monogram, which is featured on most products, ranging from luxury trunks and leather goods to ready-to-wear, shoes,...
consumer goods and trips to Saint-Tropez
Saint-Tropez
Saint-Tropez is a town, 104 km to the east of Marseille, in the Var department of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of southeastern France. It is also the principal town in the canton of Saint-Tropez....
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. The sources also stated that several of her tattoo
Tattoo
A tattoo is made by inserting indelible ink into the dermis layer of the skin to change the pigment. Tattoos on humans are a type of body modification, and tattoos on other animals are most commonly used for identification purposes...
s, in Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
and Arabic
Arabic alphabet
The Arabic alphabet or Arabic abjad is the Arabic script as it is codified for writing the Arabic language. It is written from right to left, in a cursive style, and includes 28 letters. Because letters usually stand for consonants, it is classified as an abjad.-Consonants:The Arabic alphabet has...
, were mantra
Mantra
A mantra is a sound, syllable, word, or group of words that is considered capable of "creating transformation"...
s to help keep her clean—including "What does not destroy me makes me stronger," "Protect your own," and "Never give up." None admitted suspecting that she was a sex worker, believing her statements that the cash for her lifestyle came from her wealthy parents. In 2006, Dupré changed her legal name
Legal name
Legal name is the name that an individual is given at birth and/or recognized by a government or other legal entity, or which appears on a birth certificate , marriage certificate , or other government issued document on which a legal name change is evidenced and...
from Youmans to her stepfather's name of DiPietro, stating that she regarded him as "the only father I have known." In the same year, she answered an ad by the escort agency Emperors Club VIP
Emperors Club VIP
Emperors Club VIP was an international escort agency based in New York City, founded in 2004 by Mark Brener and Cecil Suwal and operated from the bank accounts of QAT Consulting Group, Inc., and QAT International, Inc...
, and began working for the agency under the alias Kristen. By 2008, Dupré was living in a ninth-floor apartment in the Flatiron District
Flatiron District, Manhattan
The Flatiron District is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, named after the Flatiron Building at 23rd Street, Broadway and Fifth Avenue...
of Manhattan. She maintains that she was concerned about her ability to pay her rent after the man she was living with left following her discovery that he had fathered two children.
February 2008 assignation with Spitzer and aftermath
On February 13, 2008, Dupré travelled by AmtrakAmtrak
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak , is a government-owned corporation that was organized on May 1, 1971, to provide intercity passenger train service in the United States. "Amtrak" is a portmanteau of the words "America" and "track". It is headquartered at Union...
from New York's Pennsylvania Station
Pennsylvania Station (New York City)
Pennsylvania Station—commonly known as Penn Station—is the major intercity train station and a major commuter rail hub in New York City. It is one of the busiest rail stations in the world, and a hub for inbound and outbound railroad traffic in New York City. The New York City Subway system also...
to Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, for an assignation at the Mayflower Hotel
Mayflower Hotel
The Renaissance Mayflower Hotel, known locally as simply The Mayflower, is a historic hotel in downtown Washington, DC located on Connecticut Avenue NW, two blocks north of Farragut Square . It is the largest luxury hotel in the U.S. capital and the longest continuously operating hotel in the...
with New York Governor Eliot Spitzer
Eliot Spitzer
Eliot Laurence Spitzer is an American lawyer, former Democratic Party politician, and political commentator. He was the co-host of In the Arena, a talk-show and punditry forum broadcast on CNN until CNN cancelled his show in July of 2011...
. The arrangements had been made by phone between Spitzer and a booker at Emperors Club VIP
Emperors Club VIP
Emperors Club VIP was an international escort agency based in New York City, founded in 2004 by Mark Brener and Cecil Suwal and operated from the bank accounts of QAT Consulting Group, Inc., and QAT International, Inc...
, and were monitored by federal investigators who had initiated a wiretap after his bank had filed a suspicious activity report
Suspicious activity report
In United States financial regulation, a suspicious activity report is a report made by a financial institution to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network , an agency of the United States Department of the Treasury, regarding suspicious or potentially suspicious activity.The purpose of a...
regarding money transfers by Spitzer to a front company operated by the escort service.
Caught on the FBI's wiretap was Dupré's response to the booker's mention of other escorts' difficulties with Spitzer. "I don't think he's difficult," said Dupré. "I mean it's just kind of like, whatever, I'm here for a purpose. I know what my purpose is. I am not a … moron, you know what I mean."
On March 6, federal authorities arrested four individuals involved with Emperors Club VIP, charging them under federal prostitution
Mann Act
The White-Slave Traffic Act, better known as the Mann Act, is a United States law, passed June 25, 1910 . It is named after Congressman James Robert Mann, and in its original form prohibited white slavery and the interstate transport of females for “immoral purposes”...
and money laundering
Money laundering
Money laundering is the process of disguising illegal sources of money so that it looks like it came from legal sources. The methods by which money may be laundered are varied and can range in sophistication. Many regulatory and governmental authorities quote estimates each year for the amount...
laws. Initial news reports and court documents did not identify the agency's clients or call girls by name, referring to Spitzer as "Client 9" and to Dupré as "Kristen".
On March 10, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
identified Spitzer as "Client 9." Two days later on March 12, the Times identified Dupré as "Kristen." Her mother, Carolyn Capalbo, told the newspaper that her daughter "was a young kid with typical teenage rebellion issues, but we are extremely close now.” Capalbo said she was "shell-shocked" when her daughter called to tell her she had been working as a prostitute.
Dupré's only public comment on the affair remained the brief interview with The New York Times which broke the story of "Kristen's" identity on March 12, in an article accompanied by photographs taken from Dupré's MySpace page. "I just don't want to be thought of as a monster," Dupré told the newspaper. "This has been a very difficult time. It's complicated." On the day the story broke, she posted a message to her MySpace
MySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
page that said "Yeah, I did it"; it was later changed to read, "Thank you for your support, it means a lot to me." Dupré uploaded a second song to the Amie Street
Amie Street
Amie Street was an indie online music store and social network service created in 2006 by Brown University seniors Elliott Breece, Elias Roman, and Joshua Boltuch, in Providence, Rhode Island...
online music store around 2 a.m. on March 13. On March 14, New York City radio station Z100
WHTZ
WHTZ — branded Z100 — is a commercial pop/contemporary hit radio radio station licensed to Newark, New Jersey serving the New York metropolitan area. The station is currently owned by Clear Channel Communications...
played one Dupré song.
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
called her "the most famous hooker in America", and the New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
published an extensive photo shoot showing Dupré in provocative poses. By March 18, Dupré's profile on MySpace had received over 9 million page views. Dupré was reportedly offered US$1 million by Hustler
Hustler
Hustler is a monthly pornographic magazine aimed at men and published in the United States. It was first published in 1974 by Larry Flynt. It was a step forward from the Hustler Newsletter which was cheap advertising for his strip club businesses at the time. The magazine grew from a shaky start to...
magazine to pose nude, and received offers from Penthouse
Penthouse (magazine)
Penthouse, a men's magazine founded by Bob Guccione, combines urban lifestyle articles and softcore pornographic pictorials that, in the 1990s, evolved into hardcore. Penthouse is owned by FriendFinder Network. formerly known as General Media, Inc. whose parent company was Penthouse International...
magazine and Vivid Entertainment
Vivid Entertainment
Vivid Entertainment Group is an adult video producer, featuring a catalog of VHS and DVD titles and internet content. In 2006 it was described by Reuters as one of the handful of studios that dominate the U.S. porn industry....
.
It was not clear if Dupré would use her notoriety to gain modeling, interview, sit-com cameo
Cameo appearance
A cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...
, or reality television
Reality television
Reality television is a genre of television programming that presents purportedly unscripted dramatic or humorous situations, documents actual events, and usually features ordinary people instead of professional actors, sometimes in a contest or other situation where a prize is awarded...
opportunities. According to Andy Greene, assistant editor at Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine quoted in Advertising Age
Advertising Age
Advertising Age is a magazine, delivering news, analysis and data on marketing and media. The magazine was started as a broadsheet newspaper in Chicago in 1930...
magazine, "If she was in the studio with a producer, her voice is not that much worse than Britney Spears'. ... It's not inconceivable that she could have a song as good as the stuff on the charts. ... It's a really tough road for her to have a music career because she's a prostitute. ... She had sex with Gov. Spitzer, and that's fascinating to a lot of people. But people ultimately want to read her book or see her interviewed by Oprah or Barbara Walters. They don't want to listen to her third or fourth song."
On March 19, the soft porn website Girls Gone Wild
Girls Gone Wild
The Girls Gone Wild franchise, created by Joe Francis, is a video series by the production company Mantra Films, Inc., which is headquartered in Santa Monica, California.-Content:...
featured teasers of Dupré, shot in Miami Beach, Florida
Miami Beach, Florida
Miami Beach is a coastal resort city in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States, incorporated on March 26, 1915. The municipality is located on a barrier island between the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay, the latter which separates the Beach from Miami city proper...
in 2003 before she had turned 18. Dupré presented the company the drivers license of a New Jersey woman named Amber Arpaio, claiming it was Dupré's own. Company founder Joe Francis
Joe Francis
Joseph R. "Joe" Francis is an American entrepreneur, known as the founder of GGW Brands which produces the Girls Gone Wild and Guys Gone Wild DVD series....
—who served a year in jail for a conviction of child abuse and prostitution involving filming two underaged girls in Panama City, Florida, in 2003 who had represented themselves as adults—prepared to release a full DVD of Dupré footage from company archives. "All nude images of Ms. Dupre were taken in public places and contain no sexual contact," said Francis. "In Florida, where Ms. Dupre was filmed, the law allows even women under the age of 18 to be filmed nude with their consent."
Dupré's attorney, Don Buchwald, argued in an e-mail to Girls Gone Wild, "It was because she was underage that [Francis] sent her home on a Greyhound bus back to North Carolina. It would be outrageous at the very least to play the video of an underage female on the Internet."
On April 28, 2008, Dupré filed suit against Francis and two of his companies alleging their exploitation of Dupré's name and image, seeking US$10 million in punitive damages, but in July of that year she decided to drop the suit after Francis released footage showing her agreeing to be filmed.
In December 2009, Dupré started writing an advice column in the New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
called "Ask Ashley".
In January 2010, Dupré appeared on the Howard Stern Show, where she discussed incidents ranged from her situation as a rape victim to how she preoccupied her mind when engaged in intercourse with men she was not attracted to.
She posed nude for the May 2010 issue of Playboy
Playboy
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
magazine.
Legal proceedings
On March 15, Dupré was given immunity by the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York for her role in the Spitzer scandalEliot Spitzer prostitution scandal
The Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal began on March 10, 2008, when The New York Times reported that Democratic New York Governor Eliot Spitzer had patronized a prostitution service called Emperors Club VIP...
, in order to testify at court hearings related to the Emperors Club VIP
Emperors Club VIP
Emperors Club VIP was an international escort agency based in New York City, founded in 2004 by Mark Brener and Cecil Suwal and operated from the bank accounts of QAT Consulting Group, Inc., and QAT International, Inc...
prostitution ring.
In July 2008, a woman named Amber Arpaio filed a federal lawsuit against Dupré for defamation and invasion of privacy
Invasion of privacy
United States privacy law embodies several different legal concepts. One is the invasion of privacy, a tort based in common law allowing an aggrieved party to bring a lawsuit against an individual who unlawfully intrudes into his or her private affairs, discloses his or her private information,...
, claiming Dupré used her lost driver's license to appear on a "Girls Gone Wild" video. Arpaio also sued "Girls Gone Wild" founder Joseph Francis.
Music career
Dupré began singing professionally when Jerry Cooper, a musician she was living with, heard her singing the Aretha FranklinAretha Franklin
Aretha Louise Franklin is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Although known for her soul recordings and referred to as The Queen of Soul, Franklin is also adept at jazz, blues, R&B, gospel music, and rock. Rolling Stone magazine ranked her atop its list of The Greatest Singers of All...
version of the song "Respect
Respect (song)
"Respect" is a song written and originally released by Stax recording artist Otis Redding in 1965. "Respect" became a 1967 hit and signature song for R&B singer Aretha Franklin. The music in the two versions is significantly different, and through a few minor changes in the lyrics, the stories told...
" in the shower. "She had this huge voice for such a little girl", Cooper told MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
, "and so I just kind of went in and said 'Hey, come upstairs when you're done with this, and let's work on some songs'". According to Dupré, she then toured and recorded with Cooper's band, networking with people in the music industry. In 2005, she formed a company named Pasche New York, an entertainment business intended to promote her music career.
In the summer of 2006, she made an appearance in a music video for the song "Pop Off", performed by rapper Mysterious.
Shortly after The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
published their profile of Dupré, her single "Move Ya Body" set a record for how fast it commanded the top price on the music-download site AmieStreet.com
Amie Street
Amie Street was an indie online music store and social network service created in 2006 by Brown University seniors Elliott Breece, Elias Roman, and Joshua Boltuch, in Providence, Rhode Island...
, reaching the site's maximum of US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
0.98 per download in five hours. Another single, "What We Want", was played more than 3 million times on the Internet after the scandal erupted. While some speculated that she may have earned as much as US$300,000 - US$1.4 million from download sales of her singles on Amie Street, others estimated her earnings at as low as US$13,720. Dupré's music came to be featured in mash up
Mashup (music)
A mashup or bootleg is a song or composition created by blending two or more pre-recorded songs, usually by overlaying the vocal track of one song seamlessly over the instrumental track of another...
YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
videos, blending her tracks with those of established artists.
Dupré reportedly is now being represented by music manager Jerry Blair, who formerly worked for Mariah Carey
Mariah Carey
Mariah Carey is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and actress. She made her recording debut with the release of her eponymous studio album in 1990, under the guidance of Columbia Records executive Tommy Mottola, whom she later married in 1993...
, but record companies seem to be waiting to make a deal until Dupré's infamous reputation lessens.
Listen
- "What We Want" Track 1 (MySpace)
Reviews
Review
Television career
On July 7, 2008, E!E!
E! Entertainment Television is an American basic cable and satellite television network, owned by NBCUniversal. It features entertainment-related programming, reality television, feature films and occasionally series and specials unrelated to the entertainment industry.E! has an audience reach of...
reported that Dupré was engaged in talks about a proposed reality show with Handprint Entertainment, the same firm that managed the reality television
Reality television
Reality television is a genre of television programming that presents purportedly unscripted dramatic or humorous situations, documents actual events, and usually features ordinary people instead of professional actors, sometimes in a contest or other situation where a prize is awarded...
careers of Nicole Richie
Nicole Richie
Nicole Camille Richie is an American fashion designer, author, actress, singer and television personality. Her father was Peter Michael Escovedo, a musician who played for a brief time with Lionel Richie, and her mother Karen was the executive assistant for Sheila Escovedo...
and Pamela Anderson
Pamela Anderson
Pamela Denise Anderson is a Canadian-American actress, model, producer, author, activist, and former showgirl, known for her roles on the television series Home Improvement, Baywatch, and V.I.P. She was chosen as a Playmate of the Month for Playboy magazine in February 1990...
, and that she was considering a move from New York to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. One of the concepts reportedly being considered was a dating program similar to A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila
A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila
A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila is an American reality television dating game show similar to the TV show The Bachelor. It premiered on October 9, 2007 on MTV starring Tila Tequila. The series is a bisexual-themed reality dating show where 16 straight males and 16 lesbian-identified female...
. Dupré will reportedly be working with the production company Reveille Productions
Reveille Productions
Reveille Productions is an independently-owned television and motion picture studio and production company based in Los Angeles. The studio was founded by Ben Silverman in March 2002....
(responsible for the TV shows The Office and The Biggest Loser
The Biggest Loser
The Biggest Loser is an American reality game show that debuted on NBC October 19, 2004. The show features obese people competing to win a cash prize by losing the highest percentage of weight relative to their initial weight....
) to create a reality dating show based on the theme that everyone has skeletons in their closet.
Dupré appeared on 20/20 on Friday, November 21, 2008 where she was interviewed by Diane Sawyer
Diane Sawyer
Lila Diane Sawyer is the current anchor of ABC News' flagship program, ABC World News. Previously, Sawyer had been co-anchor of ABC Newss morning news program, Good Morning America ....
about her feelings about being an "escort," and the emotional effect it had upon her when the encounter with Spitzer was made public.
On July 10, 2011 VH1 premiered Famous Food
Famous Food
Famous Food is a VH1 reality series that premiered 10 July 2011. It features seven celebrities as they work to open and take ownership in a restaurant in Hollywood owned by Mike Malin and Lonnie Moore of The Dolce Group...
, a reality series featuring seven celebrities. Ashley came in third; first and second was given a partnership stake in the Lemon Basket.