Rather than tango through the courts with Ashley Dupre, Joe Francis is hoping to “settle” her $10 million lawsuit – for allegedly tricking her into getting drunk in ‘03 and baring all for the cameras – for a cool $1 million. The Girls Gone Wild anti-hero is putting his million dollar fee back on the table for Eliot Spitzer’s ex-call girl, after reneging on the initial offer when he realized he already had her on tape. And as Francis himself notes, “She should keep in mind it’s considerably more than the governor of New York paid her, and our activities aren’t illegal.” Well, that might be for the courts to decide.

While Miley Cyrus commanded upwards of $1 million for her “life story” – girl is 15 – Eliot Spitzer’s tell-all is being shopped around for a easily $350,000. Fortune’s Peter Elkind, who also penned Enron fallout book The Smartest Guys in the Room, which sold 129,000 copies, is expected to have a deal wrapped up today. But what’s the market like for manuscripts about fallen governors? Gay American Jim McGreevey’s The Confession moved just 38,000 copies, and that fella wrote his own downfall.

Though Faith O’Donnell and Sally Anderson are pseudonyms for two of the three sex industry types profiled this month by the New York Times after the Eliot Spitzer sex scandal, the paper does want to set the record straight about ‘em: They are not “high-priced call girls,” as was reported; nor do they engage in “the 21st-century version of the oldest profession.” Correcting the March 16 piece, yesterday the Times noted that one of its reporters – they don’t say whether it’s either Cara Buckley or Andrew Jacobs – never asked the women, explicitly, whether they traded sex for cash. After the article ran, they reminded the paper the term “sex workers,” which they used, can refer to strippers, not just whores. The Times had just assumed they meant “prostitutes.”

Some things are just easier to understand when explained by children.

As expected, the list of Eliot Spitzer’s whores grows. Not only was the ex-gov a client of Emperors Club, but he also patronized Wicked Models, with a one Kristin “Billie” Davis playing ringleader. She brags about her 10,000-name-long client list and $1,000-an-hour fees. She got busted while destroying evidence and preparing to skip town after learning officials were on to her as the Spitzer investigation widens. It’s alleged Davis personally serviced the former politico on numerous occasions, but no, THAT IS NOT HER IN THE KRISTIN DAVIS SEX TAPE.

Joe Francis was all prepared to offer Ashley Dupre $1 million to do a video and photo shoot for his Girls Gone Wild DVD series and magazine … until he realized he already had hours of footage of Eliot Spitzer’s lady friend. In all, there are seven tapes of Dupre, who hooked up with the GGW film crew in Miami Beach during Spring Break ‘03; she had been kicked out of her hotel room after fighting with a friend, and they offered her a bus to party on. And like all good things that enter Ashley’s life, this too, was short lived: They supposedly had to kick her off the bus when they discovered the then-18-year-old drinking.

Between stalking Eliot Spitzer at his apartment building and debating whether the media can use Ashley Alexandra Dupre’s photos without permission, we’ve lost sight of one of the most important facets of the scandal: Diane Sawyer got a green light to talk about prostitutes on network TV.

The ABC anchor had been hoping to air her special on paid sex, but the network refused to give her the go ahead for Prostitution in America: Working Girls Speak, about Dennis Hof’s Bunny Ranch whorehouse in Nevada.

No longer: Call girls are suddenly relevant again!

With an air date set for Friday’s 20/20, Sawyer’s project is a go. All it took was the resignation of a governor — Heidi Fleiss and Deborah “D.C. Madame” Palfrey, alas, just weren’t enough.

Because it’d be silly to usher in the weekend any other way, here’s a video “Superfreak” montage of newly infamous Ashley Alexandra Dupre and all of her media coverage.

Major news outlets – including The Nation, People, and The Washington Post – are misspelling the outgoing New York governor’s name. It’s Eliot, not Elliot. [Media Orchard]

Eliot Spitzer’s call girl Ashley Alexandra Dupre is popping up everywhere. There are those Charlie Sheen rumors, but here she is on the set of a music video for rapper Mysterious’ single “Pop Off.” Watch her walk! Watch her put her arms around him! After the jump, watch her play the cello!

CONTINUED »

While the Eliot Spitzer beat reporters work to suss out the rest of Clients 1-10, another big name is being brought into the mix: Charlie Sheen. The reformed sitcom star, known for his drug binges that daddy Martin had him arrested for, allegedly enlisted the services of Spitzer’s very girl, a then 19-year-old child of privilege Ashley Alexandra Dupre, for a $20,000 romp. Jason “King of all Pimps” Itzler makes the accusation that Dupre worked for him, under the name Victoria, at call girl agency New York Confidential, and dressed up as a cheerleader for her trysts with Sheen. For obvious reasons, the actor’s publicist, Stan Rosenfield, calls the allegations bullshit. (So do much of the media.)

Either way, this can’t be good for Sheen’s just-announced endorsement deal with Hanes.

And for the kicker: On Tuesday night, Conan joked, “Not surprisingly, clients 1 through 8 were Charlie Sheen.”

Ashley Alexandra Dupre won’t be the only PYT cashing in on the publicity the Eliot Spitzer scandal is offering up.

Her “friend” – not after today! – Jennifer Delvalle is shooting down claims Dupre grew up in a tragic home and endured a childhood of abuse; if Delvalle’s version of events are to be believed, the former Spitzer call girl was a child of privilege and never suffered at the hand of her parents. But still, Delvalle insists, “To know Ashley is to love her.”

Offering up a brief bio of the girl, the NY Sun reports: “Ms. Dupre’s father left the family when she was very young. Soon after, Ms. Dupre’s mother, Carolyn Calbalbo, married a dentist, Michael DiPietro. Ms. Delvalle said Ms. Dupre’s brother, Kyle Youmans, a rebellious young man, always harbored issues about his own father and often fought with Mr. DiPietro. When Ms. Dupre was 17, Mr. Youmans packed up and moved to North Carolina.”

Says Delvalle of her dear pal: “She was destined to become famous somehow.” And if Dupre’s insistence on keeping online her MySpace page, where you can listen to her crappy demo, is any indication, she’s still on that tract. Whether she takes up Hustler or Penthouse’s offers to pose for the magazine will hammer the nail.

Is anyone else not buying Bill Keller’s insistence that the NYT he’s not feeling “unbridled glee” about nailing Eliot Spitzer’s “personal tragedy?” Though he maintains that he feels “there is a lot of satisfaction in reporting it,” it’s no secret he’s more than a little excited that he gets to rub the paper’s reporting in the faces of critics who see the Times as a liberal broadsheet. And while we won’t snub the Times reporters’ hard work in identifying Spitzer as Client 9, let’s not forget it was actually the New York Sun, with a March 7 article, that identified the Emperors Club scandal and the involvement of the U.S. District Attorney’s office, so maybe that’s why the excitement is not “unbridled.”

“From morning to night, anchors and pundits filled MSNBC, CNN, Fox News and even the networks, barely able to keep a straight face while solemnly reporting that Spitzer, the self-described Mr. Clean who made a name for himself taking on corruption, was really Client 9, caught in a high-priced call-girl sting. […]

“As details emerged — the payment amounts, the problematic money transfer, the possibly ‘not safe’ nature of the services Spitzer requested, the description of his escort, that she went to D.C. from New York (What? There are no hookers in Washington? When did that happen?) — the excitement turned to glee.” [LAT]

This letter was hand-signed and sent to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno:

Dear Speaker Silver and Majority Leader Bruno,

I am writing to advise you that I am resigning my position as Governor of the State of New York effective 12:00 noon on Monday, March 17, 2007.

Sincerely,

Eliot Spitzer
Governor

This Tumblr blog, though a decent round up of press coverage is not actually authored by Eliot Spitzer call girl Ashley Alexandra Dupre. This MySpace profile, however, is.

Since Eliot Spitzer’s scandal broke Tuesday afternoon, The Daily Show’s team didn’t have much time to piece together a script for their host, or, more accurately, put together a news coverage video montage. But they did yesterday!

With 25 reporters on the beat, the Times had better be the ones to find out Kristen’s real identity. And not only did they, but they’ve also found the MySpace page of the 22-year-old Eliot Spitzer call girl, where you can listen to her portray a poorman’s Pussycat Doll.

Her name is Ashley Alexandra Dupre, née Ashley Youmans. A New Jersey Native, she’s friends with Madonna and Whitney (online only!), and agreed to speak on the record with the newspaper last night. Which might have been a foolish move, especially if she’s expecting Extra to pay $100,000 for the first exclusive interview.

As you might imagine, all is not well with Dupre. “She was worried about how she would pay her rent since the man she was living with ‘walked out on me’ after she discovered he had fathered two children.” And … not after he discovered she was sleeping with New York’s governor, who fathered three children?

Gov. Eliot Spitzer just announced his resignation before a crowd of reporters. No details on what, exactly, he was apologizing for, beyond his “private failings,” but you can infer the rest. Meanwhile, Lt. Gov. David Paterson requested Spitzer step down effective Monday, so he can get his own team in place, which means another few days of limbo for New York.

On MSNBC: Dana McGreevey, ex-wife of “gay American” Jim, is there to tell her own sob story of standing by a disgraced political husband.

On CNN: Wolf Blitzer comments on how bad wife Silda looks.

On Fox News: We’re getting so many emails!!!

Naturally, HuffPo blogger and AMI editorial director Bonnie Fuller is most concerned about Eliot Spitzer’s daughters – Elyssa, Sarabeth and Jenna – in this whole sex scandal mess. “Anyone who has ever been through the experience of having their father choose another woman over their mother, especially if it happened when they were a teenager, knows how traumatic this can be,” she writes. “Whether your father has an affair or anonymous sex, it’s all the same and it’s even more devastating when the world knows about it.”

Of course, back when Bonnie was running Star magazine full-time, she had no problem contributing to the trauma of Sailor Lee, 7, and Jack, 11, the children of Christie Brinkley and Peter Cook, who cheated on his model wife with his 19-year-old assistant, the details of which Star was hellbent on reporting.