An American Story
“I just don’t want to be thought of as a monster” — high-priced hooker Kristen/Ashley Youmans/Ashley Alexandra Dupre.
“You’re not really a monster, but you are a worthless skank” — meanspirited commenter Dave Surls.
It’s a moving tale. Bounced back from broken home, drugs, homelessness and abuse. Turned her life around. NYT:
She left a broken home on the Jersey Shore at 17 and came to New York City to work the nightclubs as a rhythm and blues singer. Now, at 22, she is the unwitting, and as yet unseen, star of the seamy drama that is the downfall of Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York.
Kristen, the prostitute described in a federal affidavit as having had a rendezvous with Mr. Spitzer on Feb. 13 at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, has spent the last few days in her ninth-floor apartment in the Flatiron district of Manhattan. On Monday, she made a brief appearance in federal court, where a lawyer was appointed to represent her. She is expected to be a witness in the case against four people charged with operating a prostitution ring called the Emperor’s Club VIP.
In a series of telephone interviews on Tuesday night, she said she had slept very little over the past week, with all the stress of the case.
“I just don’t want to be thought of as a monster,” the woman said as she told the tiniest tidbits of her story.
Born Ashley Youmans but now known as Ashley Alexandra Dupré, she spoke softly and with good humor as she added with significant understatement: “This has been a very difficult time. It is complicated.”
…
She left “a broken family” at age 17, having been abused, according to the MySpace page, and has used drugs and “been broke and homeless.”
“Learned what it was like to have everything and lose it, again and again,” she writes. “Learned what it was like to wake up one day and have the people you care about most gone.
“But I made it,” she continues. “I’m still here and I love who I am. If I never went through the hard times, I would not be able to appreciate the good ones. Cliché, yes, but I know it’s true.”
Not everyone can aspire to be a $1,000/hr+ hooker. But this is America, where anything is possible. Since the feds broke up the club, sounds like its back to waitressing and couch-surfing for now, though. There’s gotta be some kind of reality TV gig. After the resolution of any legal issues. Or maybe during.
Meanwhile, here’s another Kristen who doesn’t want to be mistaken for that one. I don’t know why. Could be good for business.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:41 pm on Wednesday, March 12, 2008
10 Responses to “An American Story”
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March 12th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
Since the feds broke up the club, sounds like its back to waitressing and couch-surfing for now, though.
Nah. She’ll hit a few talk shows, put out a ghost-written book, land a bit part in some TV dramedy, and be a regular on the Hollywood party circuit in no time.
March 12th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
Yup. She’s a celebrity now. Heck, she’ll likely get her own radio talk show!
March 13th, 2008 at 1:09 am
Didn’t Heidi leave a spot in the high-end hooker business? This girl was made for Hollywood, and looks like she has the balls to take up the slack. Surely it doesn’t matter that hers used to belong to the Governor of NY.
March 13th, 2008 at 8:39 am
“I just don’t want to be thought of as a monster”
You’re not really a monster, but you are a worthless skank. Nothing you’re doing is of any value to the world, and one thing that you are doing is downright harmful (and that’s damaging people’s families by sleeping with married men).
On balance, you aren’t the worst person who has ever come down the pike, but you are a waste of skin.
March 13th, 2008 at 9:00 am
Sorry, Dave, I place the weightier amount of blame on the married men who are soliciting women for sex, and thereby not only violating their vows and causing serious psychological harm to their wives and children but also exposing same to various STDs and HIV.
No hooker forces any John to make use of what she offers.
March 13th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Mr. Bingley,
1.) You don’t have to be sorry. You’re entitled to your opinion.
2.) I didn’t say that she was a bigger scumbag than the cheating hubby, I just said she was a scumbag.
3.) If I understand you correctly, you’re saying that if I have sex with your wife and she gives me $5,000, you won’t be angry with me because I’m not forcing her to do it. If that’s the case, you’re mighty broadminded.
March 13th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
The Emperors Club website said that their girls could only do a limited number of meetings/month as they were occupied in high academic pursuits…and junque.
Maybe a few of them had to schedule around picking up their kids at school (that wasn’t mentioned at the website, but was mentioned somewhere)
I guess Kristen (pretty girl) doesn’t fall into either of those categories. But, at 22 she has a lot of chances to turn around that lifestyle into which she has fallen before it all caves in on her.
March 13th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
3.) If I understand you correctly, you’re saying that if I have sex with your wife and she gives me $5,000, you won’t be angry with me because I’m not forcing her to do it. If that’s the case, you’re mighty broadminded.
You’re not understanding me correctly. If my wife pays you for sex you are the hooker and she is the John (Jane? In which case are you Tarzan?). I said nothing about my feelings towards the hooker (which, fwiw are a mixture of sadness and revulsion) and I think I was pretty clear that I think Johns/Janes are complete scumbags.
I evidently erroneously interpreted your calling of her a “worthless skank” and a “waste of skin” with nary a word about him as being indicative of your relative view of the two of them; my bad.
March 14th, 2008 at 1:41 am
You guys are awfully harsh. Marriage is not necessarily about sex, nor is sex necessarily about marriage. It is very hard to moralize about other peoples lives without some knowledge of the facts.
Spitzer deserves the obloquy he has garnered. He was a harsh and self-righteous prosecutor who heaped scorn upon and prosecuted others for the conduct he committed. His family deserves rachmones for the scorn they have received. However the offense to his wife cannot be judged without understanding their marriage, which we do not. Although, I readily concede the public humiliation alone is cause for divorce or a sound beating.
Ms. Dupree (or whatever her name is) is not to my mind an object of censure, nor do I believe she is to be pitied.
As to censure, I do not think she has necessarily done something wrong. I have known situations where an unmarried woman has commenced an affair with a married man and has knowingly or intentionally wrecked his marriage and caused his wife much pain. That is wrong. But Ms. Dupree, was not that. This was an unemotional and merely physical relationship. She intended no harm to Mrs. Spitzer, and, if there had been no publicity, there would have been no harm. Finer points of revealed morality will be determined by a higher authority in the bye and bye.
As to pity. I am not sure the girl needs that. Streetwalkers often fall prey to their Johns or their pimps. but Ms. Dupree was not a streetwalker. Her hourly rate exceeded most lawyers and even most surgeons, and her investment of skill in her trade is minimal. Perhaps her future looked grim, but that is hard to tell from this distance.
Of course, for her the dark cloud has a silver lining. According to LGF there have been a million downloads of her music at a profit to her of about $0.70/download. That is a tidy sum, which if prudently managed will serve her her well. She will have other profit making opportunities in the next few weeks before her 15 minutes is up. I wish her well.
March 14th, 2008 at 8:41 am
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