Banksy's Identity Finally Revealed?

Mysterious street artist Banksy has evaded the public eye for many years, with their iconic trademark artworks popping up from time to time, but their identity remaining a secret.

That may change now, after an archived interview resurfaced that seemingly shared the artist's first name. The mystery person gained notoriety in the 1990s for street artworks and graffiti, with Banksy's works fetching millions at auction.

A new question will be on the minds of owners of Banksy's works now—If the artist is unmasked, will their artworks be worth more?

Decades on from the artist's first works, their name is now reported to be "Robbie."

The BBC discovered an old interview conducted in 2003 by reporter Nigel Wrench, who asked the artist during the interview if he was called "Robert Banks," and Banksy replied: "It's Robbie."

The never-before-heard audio is now featured as a bonus episode in BBC Radio 4's The Banksy Story.

The Banksy Story was released this summer and comprised 10 episodes.

Now, The Bonus Episode: The Lost Banksy Interview has been added to the BBC's website with the synopsis: "In this bonus episode James Peak is on the trail of a lost Banksy interview."

Released 20 years after the interview was conducted, fans are about to get a little closer to the artist and his work.

Thirty minutes in length, the special episode sees Banksy super-fan Peak and "his soundman Duncan, get closer than close to Banksy's secret world - telling the story of the graffiti kid who made spraying walls into high art, the household name who is completely anonymous, the cultural phenomenon who bites the hand that feeds him."

Since the 10-part series landed, Peak said that multiple sources with updates and developments had contacted him, adding that fans "may never complete the Banksy Story" as "so much has happened since this series dropped many months ago."

In the audio episode, the presenter caught up with Wrench, who was one of the sources that had reached out to him and said that he had an interview with the artist that took place on "17.07.2003" as Banksy's show Turf War was being installed in an East London warehouse.

At the time, he said a highly edited version of the interview would have gone out, and the rare complete audio is now included in this additional episode.

During the interview, you can hear Banksy make statements comparing his work to a "celebration of vandalism" and looking at "vandalism as art."

On London and the inspiration it gave him, Banksy said he enjoyed living in a "free and easy" city and that people should "treat the city as a big playground and it is there to mess about in."

Even then, the star was big on the mystery, saying that he would not be attending the opening night of the East London exhibit: "If you never show up and people don't know who you are, then you are a character really."

Banksy added: "You can be different things to different people."