A former prostitute whose memoirs were turned into the TV series "Secret Diary of a Call Girl," has revealed her true identity.

Dr Brooke Magnanti wrote under the pen name Belle de Jour to describe the encounters she had as a high-class call girl while earning money for her PhD. The 34-year-old is now a research scientist for The Bristol Initiative for Research of Child Health, and told the Sunday Times that she had became a prostitute because she needed a job that left her enough time to complete her studies.

Magnanti kept quiet as a string of other writers were credited with her work, but after hearing she was about to be the subject of a newspaper exposé, the specialist in childhood cancer decided to reveal she was the real Belle.

Magnanti worked as a prostitute from 2003 to late 2004, and found it "so much more enjoyable" than her shifts in another job as a computer programmer. She said she revealed her identity because "it became important to acknowledge that aspect of my life and my personality to the world at large...I don't want this massive secret over me any more."

She told the Sunday Times she had been paid to sleep with "somewhere between dozens and hundreds" of men during her time in the sex trade and was "very lucky" to have had no bad experiences. She charged £300 an hour for her services, of which £200 was hers to take home.

A spokesman for her employer, the University of Bristol, said: "This aspect of Dr Magnanti's past is not relevant to her current role at the university." The spokesman added that Dr Magnanti's revelations would not affect her chances of future employment with the university.