She had a turbulent few years as a single parent and has recently been mired in controversy after a shocking voicenote scandal. But TOWIE's Ferne McCann finally seems to have found her happy ending as she looks forward to welcoming a baby with her fiancé, Lorri Haines.
The former TOWIE star, 32, is due to have her second child in the summer, and says it’s good to have real estate agent Lorri by her side – as well as her “amazing” mum Gilly, who Ferne insists she “couldn’t do any of this without”.
Ferne – already mum to daughter Sunday, five, with her ex-partner Arthur Collins, who is currently serving 20 years in jail for a nightclub acid attack – found love with Lorri in January 2022 after he slid into her DMs while she was holidaying in Dubai.
And though Ferne has decided not to find out if she’s having a girl or a boy to keep it a surprise – intuition is telling her she’s having another daughter.
“I had a surprise with Sunday, but I don’t have a preference – as long as they’re healthy,” she explains. “Everyone keeps insisting that I must know, but I genuinely don’t! Over the last two days, I’ve felt like I’m expecting a girl, but it changes all the time.
“I’ve got a girl name sorted – I’ve had my girl name forever, and that’s why I feel more comfortable with the thought of having a girl… because I’m a girl mum already, and I’ve got a name! It’s quirky – I mean it’s got to be quirky to go with Sunday! I’m really stuck with boy names – I need some inspiration. People think I’m having a boy because I keep wearing light blue or posting a blue heart emoji, but I’m not.”
Ferne has just started filming the new series of her show, First Time Mum, where – as she did when she welcomed Sunday – she will let fans in on the most intimate parts of her pregnancy and birth. In March, she opened up on the show about the scandal where a leaked voicenote message revealed she’d called former TOWIE pal Sam Faiers a “fat c**t” and shockingly dubbed one of the victim’s of ex Collins’ acid attack an “ugly f***ing c**t”. She later apologised but has said she can’t tell the whole truth due to legal reasons
Opening up about the next season of her reality show, she says, “I have such a clear vision of my birth, but we’ve just started filming the show, and I have to think that it’s not just me by myself now, I’m doing it with Lorri – I’ve got to take his thoughts into consideration as well.” And Ferne – who had what she describes as a “traumatic” birth with Sunday – says of her birth plan, “It’s not just me and my ideas. So while I’ve got a clear plan in my head, I’m still figuring out our birthing plan.”
During her first pregnancy, viewers saw how Ferne had a craving for the smell of damp sponges. And in a similar vein, she says she’s now consumed with the thought of cleaning! “I’m obsessed with cleaning smells,” she laughs. “Absolutely obsessed. I literally want to bury my nose in Dettol – it smells so good.”
And Ferne, who appeared to get her svelte figure back almost immediately after her first pregnancy, says she’s keeping active this time around too.
She says, “I haven’t tracked how much weight I’ve gained or anything like that, so I’m not sure if I’ve gone up a dress size, but I am still keeping active as I want to feel my best. I’m still working out, but I’ve slowed down because I’m coming towards the end [of my pregnancy]. I’m just walking now – I’ve got my little dog, Clemmie, so I’m walking her. I was previously doing body weight cardio, but I’ve calmed down on that because I get too tired. You run out of steam… even just chatting to you now, I’ve had to sit down, I can’t breathe!”
She adds, “I’m in no rush to get back into shape once I’ve had the baby, I haven’t thought that far ahead. And obviously for us as a family, I’ll be becoming a mother of two, so I just want to blend the family.”
After Lorri, 32, popped the question last July, Ferne will finally have her fairy-tale ending. But the star says they haven’t started to plan their wedding yet.
“We want to get married abroad, but we’ve got no plans yet,” says Ferne. “We’re going to get the app launched and the baby birthed and then we’ll think about the wedding. But it will definitely be small and intimate.”
