Amanda Brunker defends her ridiculous Oxegen 2011 slot

Columnist, journalist and eternal attention-seeker Amanda Brunker has defended her controversial singing slot at Oxegen 2011, telling Newstalk Breakfast that everyone “can decide for themselves” this weekend.

Brunker had become an Irish Twitter trending topic this week after news reached that she would be replacing pop princess Jessie J (who dropped out due to a broken foot) as a late additional addition to the coveted Vodafone stage, the second-largest stage at the entire festival.

Although the Oxegen website specifically lists the one-hour performance this Saturday as that of ‘Amanda Brunker’, the writer has assured Twitter followers that she is performing ‘with a band called Gitano - they've been in the biz a long time... It's not just me x’.

Speaking on Newstalk Breakfast this morning, Brunker assured listeners that Gitano were a “credible” band that had been around “for years”. We at JOE have stuck on our detective hats this morning and tried to find any possible information on the band and unless we’re mistaken, the group has 12 Facebook fans. Congrats on the well-earned gig, guys!

After attempting to fight off ludicrous accusations that a performance on Charity You’re A Star a few years ago wasn’t enough to earn an opening slot at Ireland’s most prestigious music festival, an embattled Brunker logged off Twitter last night with the defiant tweet: ‘Reckon I've surpassed my limit of abuse today. Will probably spend my zzzz scrangling you haters’.

When asked on Newstalk whether or not she had any vocal ability, the 37-year-old told listeners that she’s “not bad. Everybody can decide for themselves this Saturday at 2pm.”

Admitting that the gig could be potentially disastrous, she added: “I think there’ll be a lot out people there out of pure devilment”.

Indeed, Amanda. Let’s hope you’ve begun finalising plans for an extravagant bottle-proof set to combat the real-life 'haters' this Saturday.

We’ll leave the final word on this Oxegen farce to Twitter user @richaelio, who posits an even more terrifying possibility: ‘Amanda Brunker is replacing Jesse J at Oxygen?! Better tell Glenda Gilson to get ready in case Beyonce cancels.’