Ferne McCann has been announced as a Dancing on Ice contestant just weeks after she quit her ITV reality show, citing it as a family decision.
The 34-year-old, who rose to fame on ITV’s The Only Way Is Essex, launched her own reality series titled First Time Mum in 2017 – which was later renamed My Family And Me, and returns this week to ITVBe.
She said on Instagram that “after an incredible 13 series”, she has “made the very difficult decision” that the latest series of the show, about motherhood and relationships, will be the last one.
McCann gave a “huge thank you” to her fans, and added: “This show has been such an incredible part of my life for the last seven years and what a ride it has been filming from being pregnant with Sunday to now.
“Your support and loyalty to me and my family has, at times, lifted me more than you will ever know. Thank you.”
She has since been named as the first contestant named for next year’s edition of Dancing On Ice.
She told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “I’m so excited, it’s going to be a huge challenge but I’m excited for the glitz and glamour of the show.”
But what went down with her reality TV show? Here is what we know.
What did Ferne say about the show?
McCann cited family reasons as the official reason she would not be carrying on, but elaborated.
The 34-year-old mum told GMB that her six-year-old daughter, Sunday, asked her if she “was famous”, and this troubled her.
McCann said: “I know it sounds really contradictory, because we’ve had the reality show, and it’s all Sunday’s ever known, it’s actually…. normal for her to film (the) show, and it really just stopped me in my tracks, and it made feel really uncomfortable.”
McCann added that she made “the decision to be famous”, but her child did not, and she thought it best to take a break so she “does not have to come home from school and film”.
Sunday is from a relationship with her ex-boyfriend, Arthur Collins. In December 2017, Collins was handed a 20-year jail sentence for carrying out an acid attack in a packed nightclub.
Is Ferne still friends with Billie and Sam Faiers?
Former best friends McCann and Sam Faiers fell out in 2022 after Ferne branded Sam a “fat c***” in a leaked voicenote.
McCann publicly apologised but said her comments were “manipulated, edited and taken entirely out of context”, but, as a result, Sam’s sister Billie still doesn’t speak to Ferne.
It has been reported that the fallout was reignited and caused havoc at the recent National Television Awards because ITV had to “juggle its plans around the two women”.
A source told The Sun: “It was a logistical nightmare because, despite working for the same channel, ITV had to keep them apart and they couldn’t be placed into the same hospitality boxes.”
Who is Ferne McCann marrying?
McCann is a mum of two. Sunday is her six-year-old daughter and she shares another girl, named Finty, with her fiancé, property developer Lorri Haines. She met him when she flew out to meet friends in Dubai and she says he ”slid into her DMs”.
