Major Update On Ashley/Escort Story
Philly Burbs journalist Eric Gargiulo has spoken to a few people close to the Ashley Massaro escort scandal story, and they are saying that the Ashley Massaro named by Rolling Stone is indeed the WWE Diva. Gargiulo's sources are saying that the timing fits right and considering that the girl in question was advertised from New York City, it's a pretty big giveaway.
As noted earlier, an anonymous person looked up the old website of the Los Angeles based "Bella Models" escort agency via Archive.org in hopes of finding something on Massaro. As luck would have it, Massaro's page was archived on the web archive site, and a link to the archived page was disclosed to some wrestling news sites. Apparently, there was a picture of Massaro on the page at one point, but it was deleted or simply wasn't archived. Although, Massaro's name was never erased. The page said that Massaro was based out of New York City. Of course, the WWE Diva is from Long Island, New York, which is nearby New York City. The page also listed her nightly booking fee at $25,000.
Regarding Massaro's employment status with World Wrestling Entertainment, Gargiulo's sources are saying that she is not expected to be terminated from the company, nor is she really in any trouble — at least with them. Rather, company officials have told Massaro to keep quiet about the situation in hopes that the story simply goes away without further investigation or media attention.
The story itself was written by Michelle Grigoriadis, who recently did a heavily praised story on Britney Spears for Rolling Stone, which was very well written and researched. Considering that Massaro hasn't said more on the subject and nobody has retracted, it pretty much confirms that nobody has provided enough suitable evidence to Rolling Stone or TMZ.com (which heavily investigated the possibility of a mistaken identity) to show that this is simply a case of mistaken identity. Mike Johnson of PWInsider.com asked Grigoriadis to comment on the story and net theories. Grigoriadis told Johnson, "Obviously, I stand by my story."
At the moment, it appears as though that the WWE Diva's lone saving grace is Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer saying that there is, or at least was, "another Ashley Massaro" based out of Las Vegas. The alleged Massaro is a bikini model who won some major bikini competitions in 2003 and 2004, according to Meltzer. Additionally, the alleged Massaro is three years younger than the WWE Diva. People have trying to find information online on the supposed bikini model, but no one's been able to pull up up anything on her. Even if a Las Vegas based Ashley Massaro does indeed exist, the only other possible explanation that the person named by Rolling Stone is not the WWE Diva is if the Las Vegas bikini model happened to live in New York City in 2003-2004 as well, and that's a pretty big stretch.