Ferne McCann broken down in tears as she addressed her voice note scandal live on TV.
Last year, the reality star was accused of sending a string of “nasty” voice messages; firstly about her longtime friend and former TOWIE co-star Sam Faiers.
The 32-year-old was then accused of sending further “vile” voice messages, this time about her ex-boyfriend Arthur Collins’ acid attack victim Sophie Hall.
Ferne, who is pregnant with her second child, spoke out about the scandal during her appearance on ITV’s This Morning on Wednesday.
She said: “It wasn’t my finest hour and it definitely was a very difficult time in my life when those voice notes were leaked. I need to take this opportunity to publicly apologise again to those affected.”
“Obviously the words I used were unpleasant, but I have reached out privately to those people. It’s very difficult – I’d love to sit here with you guys and with my followers and share exactly what went on, but it’s now part of a criminal investigation.”
Ferne continued through tears: “I can’t do that but what I can say is, these voice notes were from a time when I was in a very vulnerable situation and it was a very very difficult situation for me, five or six years ago. Since then, I’ve done a lot of work on myself.”
“I’ve been in therapy for six years and I feel that I am a different person and even though I can’t share my full truth, and I know how frustrating that is for people listening, I know that one I will get that chance to fully be able to be 100% transparent.”
“I know my story will be able to help a lot of women, but for now I can’t say too much.”
Last year, 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.
After the voice note leak, Ferne issued an apology to Arthur’s victims.
She wrote in a statement shared on Instagram: “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. 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.”
