CNN - Spitzer's escort: 'I love who I am'

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Spitzer's escort: 'I love who I am'

When the Emperors Club VIP said it was sending Kristen, a call girl it described as a "petite, very pretty brunette, 5 feet 5 inches, and 105 pounds," Client 9 was pleased.

"Great, OK, wonderful," he told the escort service's booking agent, according to a federal affidavit.

Client 9, later revealed to be New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, was caught arranging the liaison on a federal wiretap. It was the beginning of the end for him.

For the woman at the heart of the prostitution scandal, it was just another step on what she calls an "odyssey" of degrading abuse and high aspirations.

Court documents reportedly identified Ashley Youmans -- now known as Ashley Alexandra Dupre -- as Kristen, the high-priced prostitute who met with Spitzer at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington on February 13.

Dupre is a 22-year-old would-be singer from New Jersey, the New York Times reported Wednesday.

She has not been charged with any crime.

Dupre made a brief appearance Monday in U.S. Magistrate Court as a witness against four people charged with operating Emperor's Club VIP, the prostitution ring, the Times said.

Spitzer announced his resignation Wednesday as governor of New York, two days after reports of his connection to the Emperors Club VIP emerged. Watch Spitzer's announcement

Dupre told the Times she's mostly gone without sleep since the case became public.

"I just don't want to be thought of as a monster," Dupre told the newspaper. She revealed little else in the interview, but her MySpace page offered some insight into her background. Watch a report on Dupre

Dupre writes that she left home at 17 to begin "my odyssey to New York."

"It was my decision, and I've never looked back," she writes. "Left my hometown. Left a broken family. Left abuse. Left an older brother who had already split. Left and learned what it was like to have everything, and lose it, again and again.

"Learned what it was like to wake up one day and have the people you care about most gone. I have been alone. I have abused drugs. I have been broke and homeless. But, I survived, on my own. I am here, in NY because of my music."

In her profile, Dupre says she moved to Manhattan to pursue her music career.

"I am all about my music, and my music is all about me," she writes on her MySpace page. "It flows from what I've been through, what I've seen and how I feel."

The page includes a picture of Dupre with the slogan "what destroys me, strengthens me." It also features a song titled "What we want" recorded by Dupre, with lyrics including "I know what you want, you got what I want, I know what you need, can you handle me?"

On the MySpace page, Dupre lists singers Etta James, Aretha Franklin and Celine Dion, as well as her brother, as her influences.

She also offers some advice for those experiencing hard times.

"I made it. I'm still here and I love who I am. If I never went through the hard times, I would not be able to appreciate the good ones," Dupre writes.

"Cliché, yes, but I know it's true. I have experienced just how hard it can be. I can honestly tell you to never dwell on the past, but build from it and keep moving forward."

Her brother, Kyle Youmans, told CNN he would not comment on the case or how his sister earns money, but he said she is "the best sister you could have."

"I'm sticking by my sister, doing everything so she'll be fine," Youmans said. "She'll make it through."

The family is "holding together" since the Spitzer scandal became public, he added.

Dupre's mother, Carolyn Capalbo, told the Times that she and her daughter were close, adding that "she obviously got involved in something much larger than her."