London, Nov 16 (THAINDIAN NEWS) A British scientist Brooke Magnanti has finally broken free and revealed that she is Belle de Jour, the anonymous blogger whose accounts of life as a call girl were turned into books and a major TV series as well.

The Sunday Times quoted her as saying that she decided to reveal her secret because she was afraid an ex-boyfriend would spill the beans.

The thirty-four year Brooke Magnanti, is in reality a child health researcher at the University of Bristol in western England. She told the newspaper that she jumped in to the sex trade in 2003 while she was doing her Ph.D. and she also worked as an escort for more than a year.

She wanted to tell the world about her experience but was too inhibited to use her own identity so she blogged about the experience in the guise of Belle de Jour, a legal secretary who moonlights as a sex worker.

The blog became very popular and also formed the basis of three books and the British TV series “Secret Diary of a Call Girl,” shown on Showtime even in the United States.

There was a big hue and cry over whether the whole TV series was in reality a figment of somebody’s imagination or truth. Some even accused the books of glorifying prostitution but despite all eh hue and cry Brooke never came out in the open to defend herself.

Magnanti said on her blog on Sunday that she was relieved “to be able to defend what my experience of sex work is like to all the skeptics and doubters.”

Brooke Magnanti said that her scientific colleagues at the University had been “amazingly kind and supportive” about the surprise piece of news. The university said that her past was not relevant to her current job.