Says Mind is Made Up, She’s Putting Away the Makeup
By Mariana Garces 
After more than 30 years of leading a risqué, scandalous lifestyle, Roxanne Belafonte has finally decided to turn off the red light. With the simple turn of a switch on the cheap, red lava lamp in her front window that she used for years to beckon horny customers, she officially changed her life for good.
On her new blog on Monday, she announced to her followers that she was finally ready to take Sting’s advice and end her prolific prostitution career. She will be putting away her makeup and, most importantly, she plans to stop walking the dark and dangerous streets for money, because she now cares about what is wrong and what is right.
Roxanne, who boasts famous former clients such as David Hasselhoff and Mel Gibson, said she would now be hanging up her red dress in the closet “to save for only really special occasions.”
All of this was done after the former streetwalker had an epiphany and decided she wanted to settle down and meet what she described as “a nice, normal guy.”
When she met Sting one fateful night while The Police were on tour in 1978, she had no idea how much he would catapult her into fame and increase her business, but she also admits he was more naive than she expected.
“He promised he wouldn’t talk down to me or share me with another boy, but he didn’t really give me any solutions to my situation,” Roxanne said. “What did he think, that I enjoyed this job? So I kept working for a while. A long while. A woman’s gotta eat.”
While she laments the tasteless, artificial shift she says prostitution has taken in recent years, Roxanne claims to have no regrets and says she loves spending time on her new hobbies of baking, knitting and blogging. She has a small but loyal group of followers who have helped her through the transition from being a prostitute to being an average, middle-aged citizen. Along with prostitution, she has stopped dealing and doing drugs.
She has, however, found it hard to maintain a normal life this holiday season, as her red Christmas lights have brought old customers flocking to her door again.
Since Roxanne has decided to stop selling her body to the night, she has started meeting men through the popular dating site Match.com. Her earlier attempts at finding love through Craigslist didn’t quite yield the results she had in mind. The interests listed on her profile include traveling, yoga and watching shows about cakes. It marks the first time she will be arranging dates to meet with men without charging money. Instead, she is a fan of Paypal and selling the fruits of her crafting talents through Etsy.com.
“A lot in my life has changed since the ‘80s,” she said. “I’m just a different person now. I have an iPhone. I’m also not snorting crack off strangers’ asses anymore.”
Roxanne sells hand-knit mittens and hats through her homemade apparel line for babies, Bastard Baby Björn.
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Mariana Garces is a sophomore journalism major who still thinks everything Roxanne does is magic. E-mail her at [email protected].