Journalist Sarah Tressler is sacked after her secret life as a stripper is exposed

Sarah Tressler, a 30-year-old stripper who worked the gentlemen's clubs of Houston, had a guilty secret: she earned a second income in the sordid world of newspaper journalism.

Or at least she did. After her double life was exposed by a rival news organisation in March, Ms Tressler was called into the editor's office at The Houston Chronicle and unceremoniously sacked.

So began a snowballing dispute which in May saw Ms Tressler sue the newspaper, claiming unfair dismissal, and in a fortnight's time will see the launch of her memoir, Diary of an Angry Stripper, which according to its publisher will detail the "inner workings" of her dual careers.

Yesterday, Ms Tressler announced that she will further leverage her notoriety by embarking on a "coast to coast" stripping tour. In an interview with the Las Vegas Review Journal, in which she claimed to have a masters degree from New York University, Ms Tressler said she hopes the road trip will bring national attention to her discrimination claim and help her get her old job back as a feature writer and society reporter.

She explained that she began exotic dancing in order to keep fit and pay off student loans. Money from the profession also helped her afford designer clothes necessary to attend society functions on behalf of The Chronicle.

Ms Tressler was officially fired, she said, for failing to list the "other" employment on her original job application. That doesn't make sense, she argues, because in Houston, strippers are not employees: they're independent contractors. And her lawyer, Gloria Allred, argues that firing an employee for stripping in their free time is discriminatory, because the vast majority of strippers are female.

The Chronicle has not commented, but it is expected to counter that the sacking was justified because Ms Tressler's side-job "adversely affected" her credibility as a journalist.