Billie Piper meets the real Belle de Jour

Billie Piper meets the real Belle de Jour
Billie Piper meets the real Belle de Jour (Image credit: PA)

Billie Piper is set to meet the real-life Belle de Jour, whose exploits as a high class prostitute inspired Secret Diary of a Call Girl - the drama in which the actress stars. Their encounter will be captured for a new half-hour ITV2 documentary, Billie and the Call Girl Bare All. The show comes after Dr Brooke Magnanti's decision to out herself as the author of the Belle de Jour story, which details life working as a prostitute in London. Dr Magnanti started out as an anonymous sex blogger and a novel on her exploits was adapted into the ITV2 series which stars Piper. The new programme is billed as 'a fresh insight into Brooke's life and Billie's portrayal of her'. Billie said: "I am really looking forward to catching up with Belle again." Dr Magnanti added: "This show will be the last word on what it was like to be Belle: how my sexuality was formed, how I came to the work, what it's like to be portrayed on TV. "Viewers will get an exclusive look at the real woman who lived as Belle, actually becoming her one final time." A new series of Secret Diary of a Call Girl is also lined up for 2010.

Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 


An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.