NEW YORK (CBS) ― Following the New York Times’ revelation that the girl known around the world as “Kristen,” the $4,000 call girl behind the Eliot Spitzer sex scandal, was really 22-year-old Ashley Alexandra Dupre, aka Ashley Youmans, aka Ashley Rae Maika DiPietro, an outpouring of both support and mockery came from the hundreds of thousands who flocked to her MySpace profile Wednesday.
Her identity became the hot topic of Wednesday night, and even earned her yet another alias via Matt Drudge’s online news site The Drudge Report: “The Woman Who Rocked NY.” The headline directs readers to her profile, which has already drawn several hundred thousand views. Play around on it, and you’ll find a blog from Aug. 30, 2007 where the aspiring singer-turned-prostitute describes her summer as a “roller coaster with so called friends, lovers, and family.”
She goes on to provide her advice when it comes to deciding who to trust and become close to in life, writing: “Will that person be an asset to your life…(will that person have value): doesn’t have to be financial, i am talking respect, courage, and umm RESPECT.”
The very first response comes from 31-year-old man from New York who considers Dupre to “have a lot of wisdom for a 22-year-old.” He goes on to tell her to keep her head up “because people will lash out at you because they are small and cruel.”
Another reader offers an embrace by writing: “Hang in there, Ashley! Stay positive, stay strong!”
A 23-year-old woman from Nebraska who admits she once considered becoming a prostitute leaves her e-mail address should Dupre want to talk to someone who “struggles in similar ways.”
Yet then there are those who show no sympathy at all, and instead poke fun at Dupre’s fortune-turned-misfortune. One such reader posts a cartoon of Bill Clinton caught in bed with an intern.
Another praises Spitzer for losing his career “to a good looking chick.”
And in typical toilet bowl ribs, multiple readers inquired about Spitzer’s endowments.
Some didn’t poke fun, but expressed outrage toward Dupre.
“Shouldn’t you really take this page down? You are not a role model. You are a whore,” says a 32-year-old man from Milwaukee.
A 19-year-old man from Maryland suggested that the exotic vacations she’s been on in her life, some of which she posts pictures of in her profile came by “sleeping with rich men.”
Other disgusted readers call her “disgraceful,” or a “home wrecker,” someone who people shouldn’t “rally for or support.”
It’s clear Dupre’s role in New York’s largest modern political scandal won’t soon be forgotten, eliciting an array of opinions from every inch of the spectrum. It will certainly be interesting to see where her roller coaster ride will take her next, and, if ever, it finds its way onto level ground, and back into a life of normalcy and anonymity.