Inside the wild night out that led to a jury finding that Conor McGregor DID sexually assault woman: How a flirty comment on Instagram escalated into a 9am rendezvous with his rape accuser - before things went 'badly wrong' By HELEN BRUCE COURTS CORRESPONDENT Published: 22:30, 22 November 2024 | Updated: 22:58, 22 November 2024 e-mail View comments Meeting up with MMA star Conor McGregor must have seemed to Nikita Hand like a good idea at the time – but it is a choice she has come to regret deeply. In December 2018, the then 30-year-old McGregor was at the peak of his fame, having shot to success by notching up two Ultimate Fighting Championship ( UFC ) titles. Just the year before, he'd made an estimated $130m having challenged Floyd Mayweather Jr to a boxing match.
He narrowly lost, but his 'Notorious' persona had garnered fans worldwide. Ms Hand, then 29, didn't really know McGregor, she told the court. She and McGregor were both from the same Dublin area and they moved 'in the same circles'.
Her boyfriend was friends with the brother of Dee Devlin, McGregor's long-term partner, now fiancée and mother of his four children. There had been a bit of back and forth in recent months between the two via Instagram , she said. She'd made a comment on his @thenotoriousmma page about wanting one of his bottles of own-brand whiskey – he said she could have 'anything she wanted'.
When she shared with him what he described as a 'provocative' picture via Instagram, she was wearing.
