Ferne McCann has lifted the lid on the turmoil that comes with being a famous reality TV star.
The former TOWIE star, 32, first shot to fame on the ITV reality show during the ninth series in 2013 but she quit the show in 2016 and made her last appearance in the seventeenth series in the same year.
Since then Ferne has gone on to appear in I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, SAS: Who Dares Wins, Celebs Go Dating, and of course, Ferne appears in her own ITVBe series, First Time Mum, which follows her navigating motherhood after welcoming her daughter, Sunday, five.
Ferne is now set to welcome her second child – the tot will be her first with her fiancé Lorri Haines – and although she is grateful for having shot to success with an incredible reality TV career, the former TOWIE star has insisted that it hasn't come without any setbacks.
The reality TV star has admitted that she was naïve when entering the TV industry and didn't have a clue about what exactly she was getting into.
“It’s definitely a case of be careful what you wish for,” she told OK! Magazine. “I always wanted that limelight and for people to know who I was and I was never shy about saying that, growing up. It makes me feel uncomfortable now, knowing what I know.
“I wanted it all, but that’s come with a price which I really wasn’t prepared for,” she added.
Ferne also confessed that she is nothing like the way she was portrayed on TOWIE.
During her reign on the show, Ferne was seen as one of the most controversial members of the cast, often finding herself in vicious fallouts and telling people exactly how it is with no filter.
However, the reality star has since revealed the version of herself fans saw on TOWIE was a 'performance'.
“Airtime meant a certain level of success, so I needed to be involved in the drama and gained this reputation as the opinionated, gobby, confrontational one. I’m not like that at all, but I wanted to perform and was tangled up in this b***hy character I’d created,“ she explained.
Ferne added that it was 'all too draining' for her, and in the end it 'wasn’t rewarding' because she wasn’t well-liked by so many others.
In recent months, Ferne has found herself caught up in a controversial fallout after alleged voice notes were leaked in which Ferne appeared to take aim at her best friend Sam Faires her sister Billie as well as one of her ex Arthur Collins' acid attack victim.
Ferne is accused of making a series of comments about her former best pals Sam and Billie, allegedly calling Sam a "fat c***".
"Sam Faiers is a fat c***. Her thighs are so big and I looked really skinny today and... yeah," Ferne was allegedly heard saying in one of the apparent leaked notes.
In a second voice note, Ferne appeared to call mum-of-three Sam a narcissistic b***h'.
"That's the sort of girl that she is. She's just a narcissistic b***h. She honestly won't care," another voice note says.
In another supposed leaked voice note, Ferne was accused of hitting out at Billie for giving her son the same name as her jailed ex Arthur.
In the wake of the first message, Sam and Billie's shocked mum Suzie issued a statement labelling the voice notes as 'vile' as she said her entire family was baffled as to why Ferne would say such 'horrible' things about her friends.
Ferne, who contacted the police over the voice notes, later released a statement apologising but claiming the voice notes had been "manipulated".
She said: "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 do 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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