Between March 31 and May 7, Hanna Kern had been auctioning off her virginity under the name of “Elizabeth Raine,” the paper’s website reports.
Kern is a 28-year-old double Ph.D./ M.D. student at the University of Washington, according to the Daily Mail. The Huffington Post has verified her identity with documents supplied by Kern.
Kern becomes the latest in several recent online virginity auctions that have ended in a fiasco, and she says she has learned from her experience.
“Having given it a sincere try, I now completely understand why they never do work out,” she told HuffPost by text. “It is this very messy mix of auction and publicity that is near impossible to balance.”
Kern had hoped to net at least $400,000 from a willing spendthrift. The final bid was allegedly a whopping $801,000, but Kern decided not to go through with the deal.