HARPER’S BAZAAR MALAYSIA
COVER STORY JUNE 2010
BY SUNITHA THAYAPARAN
Andrea Fonseka is crying. Her PA scurries off for serviettes in the java joint we’re hanging at but Fonseka beats her to the punch-line. Fishing tissues from the obligatory oversized tote that is the signature of models everywhere in the free world she bounces back with that high-wattage smile we’ve come to know and, dare I say, love. “I’m sorry,” laughs the 26-year-old, “but that part of the story always gets me a little emotional.” She’s in the middle of her love story with IP legal eagle – and fiancée - Australian Paul Dewar. It’s Act 2, Scene 3, that involves a stressful New Year’s eve, a trishaw ride through Singapore and a second marriage proposal - but more on that in a bit.
First. Three things you may not know about the beauty queen who got the gossip girls going when she won the Miss Malaysia Universe title in 2004 despite being, well, on the wrong end of the beauty queen weighing scales. She was proposed marriage to three times, by the same man; despite her a civil registration she will only consider herself truly married when she’s on her father’s arm being given away at the church; she eats. Take this breakfast interview for instance, where she’s happily polishing off egg-on-muffin toast and latte without a crumb to spare on her perfectly manicured fluoro-orange nails. “It’s so simple,” says the lanky model who shed every inch of baby fat after winning the title thanks to a Marie France Bodyline slimming contract. “Think biology meets logic. You don’t eat after a certain hour because earlier in the day your chances of burning of calories are higher.” And for straight shooting advice to the girls she’s mentoring for the 2010 Miss Universe Malaysia pageant, “Two weeks before a swimsuit shoot when you know you have to look your absolute physical best, cut out salt completely from your diet,” says Fonseka. “In that short space of time there is no way you can lose fat in a healthful way. The best you can hope for is water loss and you’ll be amazed the difference it makes to your silhouette.”
Sound advice, the sort of solid big sister advice you’d get from someone who’s been through the media wringer herself. Browse through old images of a young robust Fonseka in the 2004 pageant and you’ll see exactly the same bright-light self-confidence she projects today, as a lean 60 kg in an angular 5-foot-11-inch frame. So, enquiring minds wanna know, apart from the slew of boy mag covers that followed her svelte new look: what’s the diff? Fonseka pauses for a second and says, “You know, my mum thought I shouldn’t have entered the pageant when I did. She felt I wasn’t ready for it. But, I was 19, bursting with energy and there’s just no telling me,” she flashes that smile. “Sure it was hard, people could be pretty unkind, but I smiled through it all and it was a real smile, it was me. If there’s any difference in the smile then, and now, it’s perhaps that when I smile today it has stronger foundations. I’ve been through a fair bit, and survived. I have a lot to smile about today.”
Ah, and that she does. Come July she’ll be walking down the aisle with a man who’s proved to be her rock in the last two years. “I’m a traditional girl,” she ‘fesses up. “I believe in the whole white wedding-in-church deal.” Right down to parental approval, it would seem this good Catholic girl wants to do things by the book. “Twelve hours after I broke up with my ex, while visiting my sister in Perth for a quick getaway and recharge session, I met Paul. It’s funny how things happen and you don’t really think about it at the time. We spent a short weekend getting to know each other and I remember nonchalantly, verbally, giving him my email address when he sweetly drove me to the airport. Well, I got off the plane in Singapore less than six hours later and there’s an email from him. I thought, ‘Wow, nice move.’” A long distance courtship ensues and after three months Dewar casually pops the question. Fonseka is happy, but lays down the law that he has to talk to her folks. “So I take him to my parents place for the third degree and went shopping and when I got back, it’s like they’ve adopted him or something,” she cracks up. Parental approval seals the deal though Dewar proposes once again on a romantic trishaw ride in Singapore – the one that gets Fonseka all emotional because it comes at a particularly trying time. “It made me realize how ‘there’ he was for me and that’s love right? Unmitigated support, someone who cares enough for you to let you be, well, you.”
Oh and let’s not forget the third and final enactment of the proposal. Really, this has all the makings of a hit Australasia rom-com with Fonseka playing herself and – let’s go for broke - Hugh Jackman playing Dewar. It was on the couple’s first trip to Paris together and took place at the top of the Eiffel Tower. “He remembered that I’d said once how romantic it would be,” says Fonseka as she shows me the beautiful antique engagement ring her fiancée presented her with, his grandmother’s ring, and a 100-year-old family heirloom. “We get to the top and he asks me for the ring back, and I was all like ‘Hey, what’s going on?’ Then he got down on one knee, and asked me for my hand in marriage.” Just when I think she’s once again on the verge of tears, the pixie smile slips in and she says, “We then proceeded to have the most expensive champagne on the planet. I swear I’m framing those flutes.”
So now that her career is taking off here in KL with the Miss Universe Malaysia pageant contract, how will the couple manage long distance marriage? “Oh no,” says Fonseka, “We’re looking at options that work for both our careers, but for the time being I’ll have to be based here for work commitments. In the future a happy compromise might be Singapore.” But for now it’s all wedding bells and bliss for the model with an infectious laugh. “Jovian Mandagie is an absolute doll and is totally making me a goddess come the big day,” says Fonseka who reckons she’ll leave herself in the artistic hands of the designer well known for his ethereal confections. “My days are pretty full-on, with filming and getting these girls pageant-ready. It’s so nice to know that there’s one thing at least, that I simply do not have to worry about.” And with that, her PA starts getting the classic anxious PA look that denotes “we will be late for the 11am L’Oreal meeting if this doesn’t wrap up soon.” We air kiss, and in the vein of any good pulp romance the hot mel’s outta sight faster than two shakes of a lamb’s tail.
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