Ashley Alexandra Dupre Biography

Ashley Alexandra Dupré

Ashley Alexandra Dupré, the 22-year-old call girl known as "Kristen" who is at the center of the sex scandal that forced New York Governor Eliot Spitzer to resign, told the New York Times that she "doesn't want to be thought of as a monster." But just who is this young woman who has captured so much media attention?

Ashley was born Ashely R. Youmans, but in 2006, legally changed her name to Ashley Rae Maika DiPietro, taking her stepfather's last name. However, in recent interviews she refers to herself as Ashley Alexandra Dupré. Ashley grew up on the Jersey Shore, but left at 17. On her MySpace page, she writes of her "odyssey to New York from New Jersey through North Carolina, Miami, D.C., Virginia and Austin, Texas." She owns a company, which was created in 2005, called Pasche New York, which her lawyer says is an entertainment business designed to further her singing career.

Ashley's MySpace pages goes on to state that "music is her first love." She mentions Patsy Cline, Frank Sinatra, Christina Aguilera and Lauryn Hill among a long list of other influences, which also includes her brother, Kyle. "I am all about my music and my music is all about me. If flows from what I've been through, what I've seen and how I feel."

According to her MySpace page, she is from a "broken family," has used drugs and has "been broke and homeless." Her MySpace biography goes on to say that she started singing professionally after a musician she was living with heard her singing Aretha Franklin's "Respect" in the shower and burst into the bathroom with his lead guitarist. She says she later recorded and toured with them, then moved to Manhattan in 2004 and "spent the next two years getting to know the music scene, networking in clubs and connecting with the industry."

Ashley's claims of growing up with abuse and poverty are meeting with some doubts, including those from a close childhood friend, Lauren Del Valle, who still lives in the same upscale neighborhood they grew up in. The girls, who were one year apart in age, attended Wall Township High School together until Ashley left town following her sophomore year. Del Valle's recent interview with Newsday paints a different picture than the one Ashley portrays on her MySpace page.

"Honestly, I can't even fathom it," she said of her old friend's alleged involvement with Gov. Eliot Spitzer. "I mean, Little Ashley. It's like, is this really happening?" Growing up, Ashley, now 22, was a "good, good girl" who was a cheerleader in middle school, baby-sat for neighborhood kids, and liked to karaoke to pop tunes in her ribbon-decorated bedroom, Del Valle said.

"We'd sing Brandi and just stupid stuff like that," she recalled.

Other than "stupid typical parent stuff," Del Valle said her friend seemed to have a good relationship with her mother and stepfather. She had "a few flings with boys," but no serious boyfriends.

Del Valle shrugged her shoulders when asked about Ashley's claims of poverty and abuse. While acknowledging that she hasn't seen Ashley much since she moved to North Carolina as a teenager, she said she never saw signs of trouble.

"She would have told me because we were really close," Del Valle said. "From what I know, they had a lot of money and a lot of things. From what I know, she had a normal, fine childhood."

It is not clear when Ashley started working for the Emperor's Club, but she has said in interviews that she is worried about how she'll pay her rent on her $3500 a month studio (located in a Manhattan luxury rental skyscraper) since the man she was living with walked out on her after she discovered he had fathered two children. She has said that she is considering working at a friend's restaurant or moving back with her family in New Jersey once her apartment lease expires.

In an interview with the New York Times, Ashley's mother, Carolyn Capalbo, said that after her daughter finished her sophomore year of high school, she moved to North Carolina. "She was a young kid with typical teenage rebellion issues, but we are extremely close now."

Ms. Capalbo also said she was "shell-shocked" when her daughter called and told her she had been working as an escort and was now in trouble with the law. She said she was not sure that Ashley realized who Mr. Spritzer was when he was her client. "She is a very bright girl who can handle someone like the governor, but she also is a 22-year-old, not a 32-year-old or a 42-year-old, and she obviously got involved in something much larger than her."