Ferne McCann has issued an apology to victims of her ex Arthur Collins’ acid attack, as she addressed her leaked voice note scandal.
The 32-year-old has been accused of sending a string of “vile” and “nasty voice messages; firstly about her longtime friend and former TOWIE co-star Sam Faiers.
The former TOWIE star was then accused of sending further “vile” voice messages, this time about her ex-boyfriend Arthur’s acid attack victim Sophie Hall.
Taking to Instagram on Tuesday evening, Ferne issued an apology to Arthur’s acid attack victims, and insisted the voice notes had been “edited” and taken “out of context”.
She wrote: “I am aware that people will have a number of questions about the voice messages being put into the public domain and purportedly sent by me.”
“I feel I have no choice but to address these — to the extent that I can as there are restrictions on me.”
“Most importantly I want to apologise to all the victims of Arthur Collins’ abhorrent actions in 2017 that they have to relive that night and the pain that followed because this matter is again in the public domain.”
“Arthur Collins’ crimes created genuine victims, so I am not trying to portray myself as one,” Ferne continued.
“I am unable to say much because there are important and significant legal proceedings that prevent me from setting the record straight at this stage.”
“What I can say is that the voice messages that are being released are manipulated; edited and taken entirely out of context.”
“Even so, I will have said things that are untrue, and I did not believe – but I did so to protect my family and myself from serious harm and in the face of significant threats.”
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Last week, an anonymous Instagram account with the handle @ladywhistledown released an audio clip, and said: “This is the real Ferne talking about the acid victims.”
“This is disgusting and vile that she could ever talk about innocent victims. What a disgrace of a woman,” the account continued.
At the time, @ladywhistledown195 claimed that the voice is that of Ferne’s, discussing the victim entering a beauty pageant and wearing a dress made from recycled headlines about the attack.
The voice says: “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. The silly b**** has made a dress, a papier-mâché dress out of the newspaper cuttings from the event.”
“She’ll probably win it I’m not gonna lie, only because the event and the awards that she has entered or beauty competition, whatever it is, they’re probably loving all this free press for their event so they’ll probably fix it, she’ll win it,” the voice continues. “She is one ugly f**king c***.”
Ferne shares five-year-old daughter Sunday with her ex-boyfriend Arthur.
In April 2017, he threw acid in a packed nightclub and was subsequently sentenced to 20 years in prison for the attack, which blinded two people and injured 18 others.
Ferne has since moved on and announced her engagement to boyfriend Lorri Haines back in July.
