GOWN & OUT
1,000s of hard-up students on sugar daddy website
A STUDENT has told how she bagged a sugar daddy on a new dating website to help pay her way through university.
Stephany Alleyroux, 21, is one of thousands of hard-up undergraduates who have joined Richmeetbeautiful.
Its bosses say 72,655 British women aged between 18 and 26 have signed up – and 24,218 older men.
Stephany has been dating one in his mid-50s for nine months and he has helped pay her debts, taken her on holidays to the south of France and Italy and bought her Chanel handbags.
“If I didn’t have the massive student loan hanging over my head I may not have joined the site,” she said.
“But I am glad I did because I get help paying my bills but there are also the luxuries which make life nicer.
“I think those people who criticise probably wish they had done it themselves, to be honest.”
Stephany is about to start her third year of a degree course in autism studies at Kent University in Canterbury.
She lives with her mum in Bexleyheath, South East London, but expects to graduate with a £50,000 student loan debt.
Her sugar daddy is a senior executive in a company in Brussels and her mum has given the relationship her blessing, she said.
Stephany added: “We both said at the outset what we wanted. It works very well because there is real affection on both sides.”
Richmeetbeautiful, which is based in Norway, sparked outrage when it launched in the UK with an aggressive advertising campaign last November.
Giant billboards at colleges showed a couple cuddling with the words “romance, passion and no student loan, go out with a sugar daddy”. Its success comes as students borrow more than ever, with almost four in 10 thinking of quitting over cash worries.
Stephany said: “People need money to get an education and have some kind of life when they are studying.
Babies
“Thousands my age are opting out of university because of the cost. “Those attending freshers’ week this month will be worried about how they are going to get through three years. “But I do think problems could happen with young women who are already in financial difficulty and may be desperate. I suppose they could be open to exploitation.” Richmeetbeautiful links ‘sugar babies’ of either sex with ‘sugar daddies’ and ‘sugarmamas’ in 33 countries. It says sugar daddies are “in demand” because they are hugely outnumbered by sugar babies. Chief executive Sigurd Vedal said: “Sugar babies sign-ups will increase considerably in the UK as well as in the rest of Europe. “We have had great success. Society should not criticise this lifestyle or platforms like ours.”