They are the beauties who grew from pageant queens to Ireland’s most successful models, scaling the heights of stardom with their killer looks and ruthless business acumen.
Now Amanda Brunker and Andrea Roche have hit the headlines again having each landed lucrative deals.
Amanda has just been unveiled as the new beauty on the judging panel of RTE’s All-Ireland Talent Show, while model Andrea is grabbing headlines again as the face of Irish jewellery company Diamant.
But behind the million-watt smiles and their reignited high-profile careers a private storm has been brewing that both are keen to keep under the radar.
The beautiful friendship between two of Ireland’s most beautiful women has come to an end.
Not wanting to detail the reasons behind the spat, Ms Brunker has said, “I can’t even go there.” But she spoke to the Sunday Independent about her feelings towards the Tipperary-born model for the first time saying of her former friend: "There are plenty of people to be friends with, I don’t need to be friends with every Miss Ireland.
“Why would I want to be friends with [Andrea]?” she asked, asserting, “I just hate to get sucked into the negativity of rows.”
The pair struck up a companionship over a decade ago when a young, up and coming Andrea was about to scoop the crown for the Miss Ireland competition. Amanda had already lifted the crown in the same competition six years beforehand.
As the chicklit writer explains: “We were friends through the Miss Ireland competition, whenever she was Miss Ireland, around 1997 and after that.”
“She would have been over to my house and stuff like that,” she added, continuing that Andrea had also known her husband, Philip McLaughlin.
However, Amanda has confirmed that the friendship has come to an abrupt end after many years __ and has vowed never to speak to the brunette beauty again.
The newly slimmed-down author says at the time of the falling out, she was busy being a house-mom and cannot understand how the row came about: “I was at home. As I f**king always was at the time. And I wouldn’t mind I hadn’t even seen her to annoy her, you know the way if I had been in somebody’s face annoying them? I hadn’t even been out. Because I was fat, I was making kids, I was writing, I hadn’t even left the house, that’s all I was doing.”
Since the falling out, the friendship has never been reconciled, with one impeccably placed source describing how things came to a climax at an after-party one night in one of Dublin’s social hot spots. As the witness explained: "Amanda was dancing with a friend and Andrea was sitting just a few metres away.
“Suddenly they both started hurling insults at each other. They were calling each other all the names of the day and it was clear there was a lot of vitriol between them,” said the source.
“They are two beautiful women but they’re also very outspoken so sparks flew when they crossed paths.”
Amanda has described current relations between herself and Andrea as “toxic” and “venomous”.
“Thankfully, I manage to avoid rows most of the time,” she said.
“I’m just a very easy-going person who just wants an easy life. I happened to have lived my life through the media but I’m like a married oul one with two kids. I don’t want to be in the centre of dramas. I just want to write my books. My books are just humour, light-hearted entertainment. That’s the way I want my life to be.”
She continued, “At the end of the day we are all human and I’m definitely not bullet-proof.”
Asked if there was ever a chance she could put her grievances with Ms Roche behind her, Ms Brunker replied: “No definitely not.”
When contacted Ms Roche was unavailable for comment.
- NIAMH HORAN Entertainment News Reporter
Sunday Independent
