Belle de Jour sues ex-boyfriend for saying she wasn’t a call girl
The writer and commentator Dr. Brooke Magnanti — better known as the former call girl Belle de Jour — is reportedly suing her former boyfriend for libel on the grounds that he has suggested she was not a prostitute at the time of their relationship.
Magnanti’s legal team is expected to argue that such a claim would be damaging to the reputation of a woman who made her name writing a blog about her time working as an escort.
The blog went on to become two bestselling books and the hit TV series starring Billie Piper, Secret Diary of a Call Girl.
The claim appears to have been lodged in response to her ex-boyfriend Owen Morris. He is a former Royal Air Force officer identified in the book only as The Boy, who in 2013 began proceedings against her for defamation and breach of privacy.
He claimed the publicity surrounding the book destroyed his Air Force career.
The news website Vice has reported that papers lodged at Edinburgh’s Court of Session show Magnanti has decided to countersue, claiming her reputation was damaged by doubt being cast over whether she had been a call girl.
Should it go ahead, Magnanti’s libel claim could be the first in the U.K. from a woman claiming she was defamed by suggestions she was not a prostitute.
In a statement issued by her legal team, Magnanti refused to elaborate, saying: “I can confirm a counter-claim has been lodged. I have been advised to offer no further comment.”
But she recently wrote about Morris’s claim in her blog, stating: “It is a direct attack on my integrity. When the case goes to trial, I will have to present evidence that I was a sex worker.”
Alongside the comment Magnanti posted a link to what she said was an escort website containing a photograph of her in revealing lingerie, adding: “It was that experience — being made to wear terrible lingerie, awkward poses, all the rest — that first made me think, ‘Hey, I should be blogging this’.”
Magnanti, 39, who became a forensic scientist, started the Belle de Jour blog anonymously in 2003.
The blog was initially based on the life she says she led as a PhD student funding her studies on the proceeds of her work as a prostitute.