Mingling with Russell Simmons and recovered drug addicts last night at 1Oak for the Caron rehabilitation center’s annual “Save a Life” benefit, Ashley Dupré told us she endorses Democrat and Eliot Spitzer frenemy Andrew Cuomo for governor. At first hesitant to comment, she then admitted, “I’m actually for Cuomo. I am. He seems like the right choice for New York.” Dupré was seated in a booth off to the side of the nightclub, with one female friend, minding her own business and looking quite pretty in a short (but modest!) blue dress. She was at the Caron benefit because she has friends involved with the charity, and her brother is a recovering addict. Nonetheless, her name somehow managed to slip off the press tip sheet.
So what has become of this woman? She told us she’s just “living like a normal girl” these days, but she’s thinking of writing a book. “I want it to be a cautionary tale,” she explained. “I have a lot of regrets. At the end of the day, it’s made me who I am, and I’m content with myself. I’m okay. But I want to help kids not make the same mistakes that I have — life-altering decisions and mistakes. I’ve gone left a lot of times when I should have gone right. They’re huge mistakes.”
Tired of hearing this girl say such things, we pointed out that, hell, everyone’s made mistakes! She replied: “The difference between you and me is that my mistakes were exposed to the world, and you can’t expunge the Internet. I wish I could. I wish I could. But you can’t. I accept it. But I’d like to help young kids going through a similar stage that I was in before I ran away from home and dropped out of high school. I’d like to help them not make those decisions.”
“I don’t want fame,” she said when we asked why she hasn’t positioned herself as a sort of post-feminist hero. “I don’t want to be famous. I want to get married and have kids, and think of the obstacles I’ll have to face.” Naturally, we then asked if she had a position on the so-called ground-zero mosque. “I do,” she replied. “Coexist.”