Diane Passage is an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...

woman from

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

who has been described as a "

socialite A socialite is a person, typically a woman from a wealthy or aristocratic background, who is prominent in high society. A socialite generally spends a significant amount of time attending various fashionable social gatherings, instead of having ...

". Her former husband met her when she worked as an

exotic dancer A stripper or exotic dancer is a person whose occupation involves performing striptease in a public adult entertainment venue such as a strip club. At times, a stripper may be hired to perform at private events. Modern forms of stripping m ...

at Scores, one of the New York City strip clubs profiled in the movie ''Hustlers''. Passage was born in

Detroit Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...

, and moved to New York when she was 17 years old. Exotic dancing was just one of her jobs. At the time she met her second husband Kenneth I. Starr, a

Wall Street Wall Street is a street in the Financial District, Manhattan, Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs eight city blocks between Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway in the west and South Street (Manhattan), South Str ...

hedge fund manager, her day job was at an ad agency. Passage quit dancing after marrying Starr, in 2007, and three years later Starr's investors learned he had been running a

ponzi scheme A Ponzi scheme (, ) is a form of fraud that lures investors and pays Profit (accounting), profits to earlier investors with Funding, funds from more recent investors. Named after Italians, Italian confidence artist Charles Ponzi, this type of s ...

. When her judge pronounced her husband's guilty verdict she proclaimed that ''“He seemed to have lost his moral compass, partly as a result of infatuation with his young fourth wife.”'' After she separated from Starr, Passage was cast in a reality TV show that would have been called ''Wall Street Wives''. The series did not end up being produced. After her husband's arrest she says she befriended her neighbor, Catherine Hopper, the fiancée of the son of another ponzi schemer,

Bernie Madoff Bernard Lawrence Madoff ( ; April 29, 1938April 14, 2021) was an American financial criminal and financier who was the admitted mastermind of the largest known Ponzi scheme in history, worth an estimated $65 billion. He was at one time ...

. In 2011 Passage started writing a dating advice column that ''

Gawker ''Gawker'' was an American blog founded by Nick Denton and Elizabeth Spiers that was based in New York City and focused on celebrities and the media industry. According to SimilarWeb, the site had over 23 million visits per month in 2015. Fo ...

'' mocked for its cynicism. Passage is a proponent of

pole dancing Pole dance combines dance and acrobatics centered around a vertical pole. This performance art form takes place not only in strip club, gentleman's clubs as a form of erotic dance, but also as a mainstream form of fitness, practiced in gyms and ...

. She has organized charity events focussed around pole dancing and worked to get it recognized as a sport, even suggesting it had a place at the

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games (Olympics; ) are the world's preeminent international Olympic sports, sporting events. They feature summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a Multi-s ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Passage, Diane American erotic dancers 1976 births Living people

See also

References