By Julia Molony
Sunday Jan 4 2009

This is Amanda Brunker as you’ve never seen her before. Having embarrassed herself with her drinking on national TV, in addition to being dumped by the man she thought she’d marry, the former party girl tells Julia Molony how she’s managed turn her life around Photography by Sarah Doyle

It takes me a couple of minutes to recognise Amanda Brunker. She has shrunk to a size eight, and she looks as lean as a greyhound. And it's not just weight that has disappeared. With her new, slight physique comes a different bearing. She's not the loudest girl in the room any more. The wisecracks and the voluble personality are still there, but she's definitely more self-possessed and less brassy. She's not wearing a scrap of make-up and says she thinks she's starting to look old. I can't agree. I think she looks like a teenager.

When I first met her last year, Brunker had just undergone a reinvention. She had transformed herself from nightclub regular and good-time girl to earth mother in just a couple of short years. Back then, she had just landed a publishing deal for her raunchy first novel. Less than a year later, she is now a best-selling author. While the world scoffed, Amanda went off, gave up on partying and excess, worked her arse off, and then delivered. Which is why, in a way, she makes a good poster girl for the spirit of 2009. She's a testament to the idea of copping on, growing up and knuckling down; an antidote to all that unchecked behaviour and bling partying that now, all of a sudden, seem hubristic, and possibly just a little bit passe.

So, how did she do it? Well, it started about five or six years ago, when she got dumped by a man who she was "convinced" was going to propose to her.

"Being dumped was the big turning point for me. We've all done the psycho-girlfriend thing of ringing up and going" -- she puts on a tearful voice -- "'Can I not come over? Can I talk to you?' at three in the morning. And he just said: 'Get out. I don't want to see you again.' And I just sort of went: 'OK'. And for some reason, I just kind of accepted it. Part of me had just got settled, and I just assumed that I was going to fall into something -- that's what Miss Irelands were supposed to do: they were supposed to find a nice man, be reasonably comfortable and settle down and make beautiful children, and I thought: 'That's what is going to happen.' And then I thought: 'Why the hell am I waiting to have somebody else's fairytale?'"

Soon after the break-up, she agreed to take part in Mother Knows Best, a documentary for RTE which involved allowing her mother to take custody of her life. "I actually got drunk on the show, instead of just pretend drunk. Just to make it really, really reality. My mother was furious with me, and I think she was embarrassed. So maybe I needed to embarrass us all to turn my life around," she admits.

At the time, as she says herself, she was at a bit of a loss -- a bit chubby, without babies and with a mass of unfulfilled ambition. "I just said: 'You know what? My mum is right. I need to get my shit together. My life is pretty much a bit of a mess.' I had no focus or direction. And then I sat down, and I'd kind of said flippant things like: 'Oh, yeah, I want to write a book', and, 'Oh, yeah, I want to have babies'. And then I went: 'You know, I really am going to have to grow up and get focused on life.' I realised that I've no qualifications, I've no training. The only official title I have is Miss Ireland, and that doesn't really get you a foot in the door anywhere -- except maybe a nightclub," she says candidly.

When she started making the aforementioned show, she was in the early stages of a new relationship. By the time filming was over, she was pregnant and, from that point on, it was all change.

Almost overnight, Amanda got focused. "It was typical of me," she says. "One extreme or the other -- I'm either a total waster or work, work, work, totally motivated, mammy, mammy, Miss Mother Earth."

"I did fail on some things," she admits. "I bought all of the recyclable nappies and they didn't come out of their packets."

Suddenly, Amanda was able to draw on resources she never knew she had. Once she'd decided what she wanted to do, finding the discipline to juggle being a mother and writing her first novel wasn't, it transpires, all that hard.

"I messed about for years," she explains. "I was a total loser for years. That's why it's working for me now, because I never tried to put anything into practice before. I just didn't bother. All I ever had to do was keep an eye on myself, and make sure I got home safe in the evening. I didn't have to worry about anybody else. But what was I going to do? I was going to end up being some drunk aul' one in a bar going: 'Arrgh, I know Bono."'

Things didn't run smoothly initially, though. The first couple of years of her new life were a big struggle. Phillip, the man who is now her fiance, had financial difficulties. Amanda received more than a dozen rejection letters for her proposed first novel, Champagne Kisses, which promised to be a new kind of Irish raunch-lit, focusing on the Dublin social scene.

But Amanda responded by plastering her rejection letters around her desk, and she used them as a spur to keep her writing. Meanwhile, Phillip went back to the drawing board. "He just hit practically rock bottom, and he had to change his entire business around and the banks were about to foreclose," Amanda says. "So he just really had to sit down and say: 'How can I make this work?' And, thankfully, he has, and it's going really good for him now, which is kind of ironic considering them's were the good days and now we're in recession. He got himself into a hole and he really had to reinvent himself,"

These days, with both of their careers taking off, and two children to look after, there are different challenges to face, and one of the biggest is finding time to spend together.

"That's been the fall," Amanda admits. "We just have to accept that we can't indulge ourselves. I always find it funny when there are people kind of going: 'Well, we always have our midweek date. Date night.' I'm there going: 'Do you now? Fair play to you.'"

A quick flick through her diary reveals why. She's still working full time as a journalist. On the day I meet her, she is on the home straight of her second novel, which means squeezing in a couple of thousand words whenever she can. The new book that she's currently writing is a sequel to Champagne Kisses, which is currently due for release in the UK.

Does she think she has found her forte, writing about sex?

"All the sex I'm not having!" she says with a laugh. "It's not just that in the book. There is a lot of sex, but if you kind of condense the exciting bits of people's lives, sex will rate there. And I just try and make it realistic, and yet fantastical as well."

Recently, she picked up a copy of a Joan Collins novel by way of comparison: "I flicked through it, and I couldn't find the sex -- there was a mention of one blow job. That was the only mention of sex I could see."

That her books don't stint on juicy detail is a matter of some pride, but perhaps goes some way towards explaining why Phillip refuses to read them. "I think he's afraid. I think he's upset, because there are one or two semi-autobiographical instances. It was kind of funny, I got a text from a certain ex who went: 'Hilarious. Read it from cover to cover. Wasn't exactly amused at being called dull and nerdy, but nonetheless a very good read. Well done.' Oh, yeah, total revenge," she says, a cheeky smile on her face.

But while her party-girl persona lives on in fiction, the real Amanda is opting for a more stable and domesticated kind of life. She's sworn off reality television for a start.

"I had done all of them and I finished on my worst appearance ever, on Celebrity Jigs 'n' Reels. I just embarrassed myself, I embarrassed the nation. I made a mockery of Irish dancing. I was a mess," she says.

Amanda has no intention of moving away from the limelight, but has started to understand the value of a bit of self-editing, commenting that: "I think people have seen enough sides to me. I'm probably one of the most exposed people as regards my innermost thoughts and day-to-day life."

There is still a part of her that loves the idea of dancing on tables and staying up all night but, for the moment, those things only happen on paper.

"I've been involved in so many feckin' scandals," she says. "I kind of wanted my mother's neighbours to not give my mother a hard time any more. And to be known for slightly better achievements. I'm trying to put an awful lot of history behind me, and I think that the best way to do that is to try to do some good, and try to achieve some goals under my own name, rather than being associated with anybody else's."

As she gets older, notching up some more meaningful, permanent achievements is important to her, too. "I only got away with that 'lovely girl' thing for a short time. And then what kind of carried me was saying stupid things. And now, hopefully, the words are becoming a bit more wise, or funnier. Amazingly, I'm still sort of getting work based on what I look like, which I find fascinating, as I turn 35 next year."

Thirty-five isn't exactly past it, I say. And, with the help of Slender Xcellerate, the natural weight-loss supplement product she uses and promotes, she is slimmer now than she was before she had her children. "I still haven't had any cosmetic surgery," she says, with just a touch of fanfare. "I probably couldn't afford it. Ha ha. Although I have been offered boob jobs on a publicity basis. But I just don't think I could handle any more pain at the moment. I'd love to give myself the wedding present of a boob job. But we haven't set a date yet, so there's no urgency."

Since the start of her career, Brunker has always made sure that, like it or not, it's impossible not to know her. So, how can there be room for personal development when your very character is a brand? She seems to get around that problem by simply inventing a whole new one, while the core, the fundamental Amanda, remains the same. "There are more talented writers than me, and better-looking girls," she says. "There's always somebody that is going to be better than you at some level. But it's about trying to find your own niche, and trying to make it work for you. And I realised nobody out there was cheekier than me. That was the only thing I had going. That, and being able to market myself into a career."

Slender Xcellerate is available in all good health stores and pharmacies, and from their customer careline, tel: (1890) 252-431, or see www.lifes2good.ie

'Champagne Kisses', the best-selling novel by Amanda Brunker, is out now in paperback

- Julia Molony

Download our Free iPhone App Now