Sara Leal, the 23-year-old blonde from Texas, who allegedly spent a night in a hot-tub with Ashton Kutcher in his hotel room, told her friends that the evening ended in a torrid sexual liaison.

One of Sara Leal closest friends, party promoter Gavin Naumoff, 23, said last night:

“Sara’s a great girl. My job is to round up hot girls and bus them into clubs in San Diego or Vegas. The girls get free booze, food, whatever, and they attract rich and famous guys to the clubs. It’s a two-way street. The girls get to meet rich men and the guys get what they want.”

Pointing proudly to photographs he took recently of a topless Sara Leal, he bragged:

“She was off her head, we all were. She’s a wild girl and loves to party. She is someone who knows what she wants and is determined to get it.”

Sara Leal

But to understand how Sara Leal allegedly found herself in the hot tub of Ashton Kutcher’s 12th-floor suite in San Diego’s Hard Rock Hotel last weekend, one has to go back to her humble Texan beginnings.

An ugly, featureless railroad town, McAllen is surrounded by searingly hot, pancake-flat oil fields and cotton, citrus and cattle farms.

Sara Leal was born to a Hispanic father, Arturo, and a blonde saleswoman, Darcy. Her parents divorced when Sara was eight years old.

Last night at his home in a crime-ridden McAllen suburb, her father told us:

“I have no comment on what’s going on except that she’s a wonderful girl, an innocent girl, and I don’t like the way people are talking about her.”

Sara Leal’s grandmother, Monna Rober, 78, added: “She was raised to have very good values.”

Sara Leal spent her early years in a modest bungalow in a lower-middle-class area. A simple wooden swing still dangles from a tree in the parched front garden. After the divorce, Sara Leal and her mother moved to a cheap rented flat on a sprawling estate.

While Sara Leal has been attacked online, her grandmother said she is optimistic that “things will turn out for the best”.

“She’s always been a pretty girl. People aren’t being fair to Sara,” she said.

One of Sara Leal closest childhood friends, who asked not to be named, said:

“I wouldn’t be surprised if it is true. She was always a party girl who wanted to get out of McAllen.

“From the time we were in high school, I think she hoped to find a richer older guy to take care of her. She wasn’t great at anything in particular that would have enabled her to make it on her own. But she was good at looking good. She dyed her brunette hair blonde and wore risque clothes.”

In a photograph taken in McAllen, Sara Leal playfully lolls in a hot tub with a male friend. She is wearing a pink bikini and sipping a margarita. In another photo, she parties in front of a table cluttered with bottles. Sara Leal originally attended a private Catholic academy, Our Lady of Sorrows, but soon transferred to a series of state-run schools.

Sara Leal in a hot tub with a male friend

The friend says Sara Leal ultimately attended an “options school” offering accelerated learning for teens with drug problems, unwed mothers and students “who want to get done with school quickly”.

“Sara finished school half a year early and started hanging out with older men,” said her friend.

Sara Leal’s first serious boyfriend was Serafin Gomez, now 25, a rugged science student from an affluent family.

“He was Mr Gorgeous and Sara seemed to be living really well. She drove a Cadillac,” recalled her friend.

“They split up after three years and she headed west.”

Sara Leal arrived in San Diego two years ago, where she promptly fell in with a hard-partying crowd.

One friend, Rafael Sandoval, said: “I don’t know what Sara does for a living. When you are young and pretty, you can party all night for free.”

Fluxx is the hottest club in San Diego at the moment and is placed in the fashionable downtown Gaslamp section of town. There is a circular dancefloor with a DJ on a raised dais surrounded by dancers in bikinis. On Friday, September 23, Ashton Kutcher arrived with a group of male friends.

As usual, Fluxx was filled with scantily clad young women. In recent weeks, it has played host to actor Jamie Foxx and rapper Snoop Dogg.

The club’s promoter, Aaron Klose, said: “I saw Ashton dancing with several girls, including Sara. Fluxx has the reputation for only allowing the prettiest ones in. Ashton was clearly up for a good night.”

Gavin Naumoff said he was given an account of the night by Jacques Du Toit, a South African yacht worker.

He explained: “Sara was at the club with some girlfriends. My buddy Jacques is the boyfriend of one of the girls partying with Sara that night, Alexis. The story is Ashton was picking out girls who were <<hot tub worthy or not>>. He would send his friends to hand-pick the prettiest girls from the dancefloor.”

Ashton Kutcher was booked into the $3,800-a-night “top of the rock” Diamond Suite at the Hard Rock Hotel. According to the hotel’s website, the luxury 1,200 sq ft accommodation has an outdoor Jacuzzi that “is always a hit”.

Gavin Naumoff said: “Jacques told me Alexis called him to say she and some other girls were going to a party in Ashton’s suite. Jacques was concerned, so he went over to the hotel to make sure she was behaving. Alexis told him Ashton’s room number and when he got there, a bodyguard was at the door who said it was a private party. Jacques explained he was the boyfriend of one of the girls and was let in.

“He found Ashton in a hot tub on the balcony with Alexis, Sara, a girl called Katie and another girl called Marta. They were all naked. Ashton invited Jacques to join them in the tub.

“Apparently, Ashton said, <<Yo, where’s the vodka at?>> and Jacques was like, <<It’s over there but I’m not going to get it>>. So Ashton gets out to get the vodka and that’s when Jacques saw he was butt naked.”

The alleged sexual encounter took place that night after everyone except Sara Leal and her friend Marta had left.

“Sara is telling everyone 100% that she and Ashton had sex,” claimed Gavin Naumoff.

“Jacques and Alexis are two of my best friends and Sara is a good friend. If she says she slept with him then I think she’s telling the truth.”

Katie Boggus, a friend of Sara Leal from Texas, who allegedly took part in the hot tub high jinks, refused to be drawn on the subject when approached at her San Diego home late Friday.

She said: “Sara is a great person. It’s really sad people are saying mean things about her.”

When asked directly if Sara Leal slept with Kutcher that night, she said: “I can’t talk about that.” Asked about being in the hot tub with a naked Ashton Kutcher, she smiled and said: “I’m sorry, I can’t say anything about that.”

According to another girlfriend of Sara Leal, she is “keeping low”.

Sara Leal out partying with friend Katie Boggus

The woman, who asked not to be identified, said: “The last thing she said was she would rather Ashton paid her the money and she would never talk. She’s a bit freaked out how big this story has become.”

Ashton Kutcher’s high-profile lawyer Marty Singer stayed uncharacteristically quiet when asked to comment about Sara Leal’s claims.

As for Demi Moore, the stress of the allegations has caused weight to fall off her already slim frame. According to friends of the actress, she has been devastated by the allegations of her husband’s infidelity, even though they are not the first.

Last year, another “party girl”, Brittney Jones, claimed she had sex with Ashton Kutcher at the marital home in Los Angeles. Despite threats of legal action over Brittney Jones’s “lies”, none ever materialized.

A producer who knows Demi Moore said: “Demi is devoted to Ashton. She is so proud and supportive of him. The silence from her side is deafening.

“Demi does everything she can to stay young and sexy, but when it comes down to it she is a 48-year-old woman. There is a whole generation of young girls who don’t care if a man is married. They just want to have a good time and hit pay dirt. Only time will tell if Sara Leal really did hit the jackpot.”