Alix Earle's Stepmom Addresses Past Scandals in Candid Essay

Ashley Dupré, the stepmother of TikTok influencer Alix Earle, has spoken out about her past involvement in the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal and her affair with Alix's father, TJ Earle. In a personal essay for Elle, Dupré reflects on the choices that once made her tabloid fodder, acknowledging their recklessness and the consequences they had.

Dupré was thrust into the national spotlight in 2008 when she was identified as an escort connected to then-New York Governor Eliot Spitzer. She recounted being approached at 19 with an offer to make $1,000 an hour on dates with high-profile men. "My first answer was no, but I kept his card. Eventually, I made the call," she wrote, explaining her decision stemmed from a desire for money and independence after years of operating in "survival mode."

She detailed how, after working discreetly for two years, the FBI contacted her, revealing the identity of one of the men she had met. The subsequent media frenzy, with her name and face on the front page of The New York Post, was an irony she found difficult to process, having moved to New York City seeking recognition but receiving it for something she wished to keep private.

Around the same time the Spitzer scandal broke, Dupré's affair with TJ Earle, Alix's married father, also became public. She described meeting TJ at a New Jersey restaurant and feeling an immediate connection, but acknowledged they "crossed a line we shouldn’t have crossed." She expressed responsibility for her part in the affair, recognizing the hurt it caused his wife, Alisa, and their daughters, Alix and Ashtin.

Alix Earle, who was a child when these events unfolded, has previously spoken about the impact on her family. On the podcast "Call Her Daddy," she recalled paparazzi appearing at her home and her mother quickly moving her and her sister away, initially without understanding the situation. She later discovered the extent of the scandal through online searches in fourth grade, realizing her family life had been publicly exposed.

Alix described the difficulty of navigating her father's new relationship with Dupré, recalling the confusion and anger she felt as a child being told to be respectful to her stepmother. "I wanted to rip her head off. It was very weird because I felt like I was a 10-year-old having to be more mature than someone 20, 30 years older than me," she stated.

Dupré and TJ Earle eventually married in 2013. Reflecting on her past, Dupré stated she no longer wants to be defined by her "reckless" and "selfish" choices. "Twenty years ago, I wanted everyone to understand me. Today, I don’t," she wrote. "The people sitting around my dinner table know who I am. So do I."

She added that while she wouldn't repeat all her past choices, she is "done wishing her away." She described the young woman she was as "ambitious, reckless, complicated, and sometimes very wrong. But she kept going." Dupré concluded by emphasizing the importance of allowing people to grow, noting that a culture fixated on past mistakes leaves little room for change.