Ashley Dupre

Heidi Montag, whose previous female BFFs have included Lauren Conrad, Jen Bunney and Karissa Shannon, has a new fave gal pal: Ashley Dupre!

The fame whore and former actual whore bonded while filming their new reality show Famous Food with Danielle Staub, Jake Pavelka and the like.

On the VH1 show, the Z-listers compete to operate and win an ownership stake in a restaurant. But Heidi has already won the prize of friendship.

"Ashley's my absolute favorite person hands down on the show," Heidi says of Eliot Spitzer's one-time lover. "She’s the sweetest, nicest person."

"She’s one of my favorite friends I’ve ever had in my whole life. I love Ashley! If it weren’t for her, the show would have been a lot different for me."

Heidi adds: "She'll be one of my best friends for the rest of my life."

Until Spencer Pratt says otherwise, at least. You know how he is.

[Photo: WENN.com]

Who are Danielle Staub, Ashley Dupre, Heidi Montag and Jake Pavelka?

I'll take people who totally need to star in a reality show for $800, Alex.

Yes, this is really happening. The Real Housewives of New Jersey prostitution whore, actual prostitution whore, former Hills star and former Bachelor are filming a show called Cafe Med. They were seen on Sunset Plaza in West Hollywood, Calif.:

The premise for this ridiculousness? They are going into the food business together. Sort of. Cafe Med puts these reality stars under the pressure cooker!

"They are revamping a restaurant from the ground up," says a source on the set of the new VH1 series. "They started shooting it this past weekend."

The cast will be tasked with opening a restaurant in just 28 days.

Not a very long period, that's for sure. It's around the length of time Heidi Montag between plastic surgeries, or that Jake was engaged to Vienna Girardi.

[Photo: WENN]

The lovely Ashley Dupre turns 25 today. Happy birthday to our personal favorite former political sex scandal participant and current Playboy cover girl!

She gets a bad rap, having been a high-priced hooker, but in Ash's defense, she was just trying to make a living, and didn't know who her clients were.

Unlike Rielle Hunter, who knowingly broke John Edwards' home, no matter what she claims. Ashley is also pretty hot, which Rielle cannot claim. Anyway.

If you missed it, check out THG's exclusive interview with Ashley last week. Then check out pics of her below (click to enlarge) in honor of her big day ...

Two years ago, Ashley Dupre - or "Kristen" as she was known to Eliot Spitzer - became embroiled in one of the biggest sex scandals ever, as the Governor of New York State was snared in a prostitution sting. He was Ashley's client.

After removing herself from the spotlight, she's back in a big way next month as Playboy's cover girl for May. Suffice it to say, she looks amazing.

Below, in an exclusive interview with The Hollywood Gossip, Ashley Dupre tells us:

• Why she took part in the world's oldest profession
• Why she chose to bare all for the men's magazine
• What she looks for in a man, and much more ...

THG: Did you ever struggle with or question the morality of your past profession?

Ashley Dupre: I was young, I was stupid, and I’ve made a lot of mistakes. Going back to the profession after being out for 11 months (before I got caught) was the hardest thing that I’d ever had to do up until that point.

I was in a relationship during those 11 months, which helped me learn self worth and self respect. I had dreams and goals and I was living a normal life during that time. When the man I was dating left me after 11 months, he left me with debt and responsibilities above my means. In order for me to be able to pay off my debt and move out of my apt I had to go back to work for a little bit.

At that moment, I felt like I had too much self respect to return to that line of work, so it was hard for me to go back. I felt like I was above that. But I had to. So I did. Do I feel bad about what I was doing?  In a way, yes – I do take some responsibility. But at the end of the day, I was just doing my job.

THG: Without naming names, did you have any other famous clients besides #9?

Ashley Dupre: Maybe, maybe not. I do not kiss and tell.

THG: Why did you decide to pose nude for Playboy now, having turned down similar offers in the past?

Ashley Dupre: Playboy has been the number one men’s monthly magazine subscription for more than 55 years. Cindy Crawford, Brooke Burke, Pamela Anderson and Marilyn Monroe all graced the cover of Playboy, and I am honored to be next to [them].

My sex was being bought and sold, but in a different way through the media - half naked pictures of me were circling for a long time. Posing in Playboy was a way for me to reclaim my sexuality and take control of my image. This is the first time that I have had photo approval over any photos that are being released.

This is the first time that there are photos out there of me that were released with my permission. These photos are beautiful and I am so happy and proud to be affiliated with Playboy and to be part of the Playboy family!

Most girls who take it all off for Playboy are thus labeled whores, even though it's not literally true. Ashley Dupre, an actual whore, has done the reverse, achieving fame for selling her body for money, then posing for the magazine!

The Ashley Dupre Playboy issue isn't out until next month, but already we've seen the cover and gotten our hands on the first nude photo from it.

It's ... about what you'd expect.

Retouched to high heaven (Britney Spears would not approve), this is little we haven't seen before. Thanks, New York Post and Girls Gone Wild.

But to see what former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer thought was worth $4,000 an hour, follow the jump for the first photo from her spread ...

Remember Ashley Dupre? The high-priced hooker New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was caught sleeping with in 2008 and had to resign his job as a result?

We understand if you forgot, but Playboy didn't. As we previously reported, they scored an interview with the New Jersey native as well as a photo shoot!

Check out Ashley Dupre's Playboy cover for May here ...

The 24-year-old is featured in an eight-page spread, and talks about becoming a call girl, the Spitzer scandal, and what she thinks of Tiger Woods’ mistresses.

According to Ashley Dupre, people may call her the girl who brought down the governor of New York State, but she says that Spitz actually brought her down.

“As much as I wish I could make that go away, I can’t,” she says, adding that when the scandal broke, she saw her singing career "flash before her eyes." LOL.

Ashley Dupre, who you can see nude for only $4.99 next month (or probably for free online), used to charge thousands of dollars an hour for that privilege.

She is now a relationship advice columnist for the New York Post (seriously).

Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer saw Ashley Dupre naked for thousands of dollars an hour. This May, you can pick up Playboy for $4.99 and do the same!

Or better yet, the Ashley Dupre pictures from the mag will probably leak online for free! Everyone wins! Well, except Spitzer. Dude lost his job for banging a hooker.

In any case, word has it the photo shoot is literally smokin' hot.

We actually used literally properly there, too. Girl was on fire! Photographer Stephen Wayda had Ashley lay down surrounded by candles when disaster nearly struck.

"A few strands of her hair caught on fire because of all the hairspray," says a source.

"The hairstylist, Jorge Serrano, was the first one to notice and rushed over," according to the venerable New York Post, which not surprisingly is all over this story.

The former call girl Kristen and current "aspiring singer" was able to finish the shoot, and was uninjured, fortunately. Her eight-page spread hits newsstands April 16.

Nice to see Ashley back in the news. It'd been too long since our favorite hoe surfaced. She was the world's most famous political side tail until Rielle Hunter came along.

At least Ms. Dupre is kind of attractive, too. Sorry Rielle.

Eliot Spitzer, the disgraced former governor of New York State, is thinking about getting back into politics. Yeah, that's how bad his replacement is doing.

With Spitzer making a slow return to the public stage, his former mistress / call girl, Ashley Dupre, thinks she deserves a second chance too, dammit!

A second chance for attention, maybe.

Tired of being known as "woman who brought down the Governor," Dupre said "I didn’t call the tabloids, I didn’t blow the whistle and I didn’t save 'the dress.'"

Nice Monica Lewinsky reference there.

As for accusations she has been "'cashing in' on the scandal – wrong again."

She says she never sold photos of herself, posed nude, did any reality TV or sold any of her music in the wake of her career as a hooker being exposed.

This comment is:

1. Untrue, as her crappy songs were downloaded hundreds of thousands of times online once her name was released in the sex scandal
2. Misleading, as she certainly tried to get a reality TV show, only no one was interested, and gave a number of high-profile interviews

Still, Ashley Dupre says that being outed as a high-class ho has "closed far more doors than it ever opened" (fancy that) and that the real people trying to cash in are publishers, whom she dismisses as "worse than the tabloids."

She seems to imply that more than one has begged for a book deal about the “exciting life of a high-priced NYC escort,” but she took the high road.

Somehow we doubt it. But most of Ashley Dupre's rage is reserved for the women of New York City and beyond, whom she says "love to judge."

"I know many women who target guys with money and use them to get things," Dupre says. "They toy with them, flirt, go on dates, have sex and then drop hints about that new dress at the store down the street or being short on rent money."

Is what I did any more dishonest? Get real and get over yourself."

The anti-attention whore's interview ends, naturally, with a nice plug for a "Rough mix of a song I am working on that tells a little bit of my story."

Not that she's trying to cash in or anything. Heavens no.

Remember her? Ashley Dupre, a.k.a. Ashley Alexandra Dupre, a.k.a. Ashley Youmans, a.k.a. Ashley Rae Maika DiPietro, a.k.a. Kristen, turns 24 today.

What a ho.

The high-class prostitute (not an oxymoronic term at all) who banked $4,300 an hour to performs sex acts on former N.Y. State Governor Eliot Spitzer, hasn't been heard from in some time. She's probably trying to get her life together.

Or still trying to shop a book deal, reality show, Playboy spread, etc. For a time, Dupre was an even bigger attention whore than Heidi Montag. Although the latter is actually good at it. And the former was an actual whore.

Just saying.

In any case, click to enlarge photos of America's favorite call girl in honor of her big day, and peep our celebrity birthdays calendar to see who's next!

She may not be charging elected officials $4,300 to bone her, then giving tear-jerking interviews with Diane Sawyer, but Ashley Dupre is still up for causing drama here and there in New York City, according to the city's newspapers.

The scene: the hooker-turned-famous-ex-hooker somehow landed in the front row of designer Yigal Azrouël’s Fall/Winter 2009 fashion show this week.

When Azrouël discovered the skank in her seat, he flipped and fired his PR person who placed her there. Turns out that PR flack is none other than Kelly Cutrone of People’s Revolution, best known as Whitney’s boss on The Hills.

Amazingly, not everyone wants America's most favorite "escort" and Girls Gone Wild alum, Ashley Dupre, sitting front row at their events. [Photo: Splash News Online]

Apparently the sex-selling singer and the PR individual know each other, admitted Kelly Cutrone, who also appeared on The City: “I didn’t invite her, but I wasn’t going to kick her out or turn her away... We know one another, we’re friends.”

Cutrone also insisted that such publicity would not just have been tolerated - it would have been warmly received by other fashion designers:

“If Ashley Dupre had shown up at Marc Jacobs’ show he would have been a hero,” she said. “It would have been cutting-edge - but Yigal and she weren’t the best fit.”