"I'm Not a Big Player in Anything"

So says the man the tabloids have dubbed Fat Puss, Alan Bradley. But he's due in court on charges of conspiracy to commit armed robbery, with figures between €950,000 and €2 million being bandied about in the media. In an exclusive interview, he asks how can he get a fair trial?

Jason O'Toole, 23 Oct 2008

The infamous Alan “Fat Puss” Bradley – once described in the Dáil by ex-Taoiseach Bertie Ahern as a high-profile criminal – has been making headlines recently. However, his latest appearance on the front pages of the tabloids had nothing to do with crime. Instead it emerged that he had entered the Mr Ireland bodybuilding competition...

The 33-year-old – who’s now been re-dubbed “Fit Puss” by the tabloids – is infuriated with the media coverage. Bradley feels he was taunted for not making the cut at the Mr. Ireland competition.

“It was on the front of the paper as if I went in to win the fucking Mr. Ireland competition. I knew I wasn’t a winner,” insists Bradley, as he sits down with a cup of black coffee. “It was an achievement to get my body looking like that and just doing the show. People wouldn’t believe half the shit you go through to get into this condition.

“I went to a show last year in the Olympia and I said to myself, ‘I’ll do that next year’ – and I done it. It was an achievement. It was a great feeling to have my kids at the front of the crowd – I have a two-year-old and a 12-year-old – and to have them screaming for me, ‘Go, Daddy! Go, Daddy!’ That was good enough for me. It was a great day out for all my family.”

Leaving the competition venue on Dublin’s Abbey Street, Bradley was ambushed by the media. He declined to comment and says he can’t understand why some tabloids decided to turn the fact that he didn’t win into a front-page story.

“They should have had a spread about the winners,” he says. “Instead they put, ‘Fit Puss Flops!’ That was a disgrace. I didn’t flop anything. I wouldn’t give them the time of day. I wouldn’t even acknowledge them. They just write bad things about you when they feel like it. They’ve turned my life upside down with their lies. The crap that they write is unbelievable.

“I do something decent and they blackened me in the paper. ‘Fit Puss Flops!’ Who gives a shit? And then it has down at the end of the article about the conspiracy to robbery. What was the story about? Are they trying to make me look bad? Like, they’ve nothing better to do. Did I deserve the front-page of the paper? No, I didn’t. The people that won it – that put their heart and soul into it – did.”

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