Research scientist Dr Brooke Magnanti, 34, lifted the lid on one of the literary world's best-kept secrets when she confessed she was the former prostitute behind a best-selling diary - something her parents only found out about when it appeared in a newspaper - writes Gordon Rayner for The Daily Telegraph.

American-born Magnanti, who works for Bristol University, rang her mother to tell her in person about her past as a sex worker, and said her mother had been "fully supportive". But the former Catholic schoolgirl has not contacted her estranged father, a gardener in Florida, who told The Daily Telegraph the news came as "a complete shock to me".

Magnanti, who went to England to study for a doctorate at Sheffield University, has said she turned to prostitution after moving to London to finish her studies and finding she did not have enough money to pay the rent. Her decision to out herself as the author of The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl, which was turned into a hit TV series, has been supported by her colleagues at Bristol University, which said her former life was "not relevant to her current role".
Full report on The Telegraph site

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