A Duke University student who became a porn star to pay her way through college has revealed her identity, the New York Daily News reported.

The student, who revealed her stage name is Belle Knox, came forward because she was being "harassed" by her peers.

"I was outed to my university classmates by another Duke student who had seen me on the Internet a few months ago," Knox wrote in a piece for XOJane on Tuesday.

Knox had no intentions of telling everyone who she really was, but she had no choice after the student who saw her broke his promise and told everyone.

"He proceeded to reveal who I was to the entire Greek system, which is when all of this controversy first began," Knox, a freshman, wrote. "I started to be harassed. He started to be applauded."

Knox defended her decision to enter the porn industry, writing that it was a way to pay for her yearly $60,000 tuition at Duke, a Top Ten North Carolina school, according to the Daily News.

According to one source, porn stars can rake in up to $80,000 a year for one scene per week, the Daily News reported.

Once she was outed Knox said she was bullied by her classmates, and was even told that she is " 'an embarrassment to Duke.' "

Knox received a slew of online threats and insults, too.

"I am going to officially reveal what my porn name is- outside of the dregs of the Internet trying to bully me into using my birth name for porn, on message boards where comments like 'Her nose is bigger than her tits' or 'She deserves to be raped' are the common parlance- and that is my choice to make," Knox wrote.

The freshman also defends herself by mentioning the people who actually watch and support porn, an industry which "rakes up $13.3 billion in the U.S. alone," Knox wrote. Her decision to do porn has nothing to do with who she is as a student.

"I am one identity when I am a student. I'm another when I do porn," Knox wrote.

"My name is Belle Knox, and I wear my Scarlet Letter with pride."