Right way.. wrong weigh
Melanie C tells Lauren Taylor she is glad attitudes have changed since her struggle with anorexia at the height of Spice Girls’ stardom
MANY things were very different in the 90s, as Melanie C can testify better than most.
Mental health was rarely spoken about by anyone in the public eye, depression was “almost a taboo”and women’s weight was freely discussed – to the point where Victoria Beckham and Geri Horner (then Halliwell) were weighed live on TV. Mel, known as Sporty Spice, said: “Shocking, isn’t it? It’s my daughter’s (Scarlet, 13) least favourite expression, when I say it was a ‘different time’. “And it really was – thank God things have changed. “There’s so much more celebration of body diversity now. Young people don’t want to look skinny any more. That’s not the aesthetic of the day, you know?” Along with Geri, Ginger Spice, and Victoria Beckham, Posh Spice, Mel B, Scary, and Emma Bunton, Baby, the Spice Girls were a global cultural phenomenon, going to No1 around the world. But in private Melanie, 48, was afraid to leave the house and battled anorexia. She did daily 10km runs followed by two-hour workouts and restrictive eating, getting to her thinnest in 1998 after the release of the group’s second album – their last as a five piece – Spiceworld.
Scouser Mel said: “With hindsight, I think it would have been really beneficial for me to have taken a break. I think partly, I was frightened to stop, because I didn’t know what that would lead to.
“It’s like you have a big price to pay for being successful.”
Geri, who had her own battle with bulimia, tried to talk to Mel about it but with no success and when she did put on weight headlines like Sumo Spice emerged, which she now describes as “devastating and humiliating”.
Her new autobiopgrahy Who I Am also reveals she was sexually assaulted during a massage, the night before the very first Spice Girls show in Istanbul.
“Still to this day, it’s something I haven’t fully dealt with,” she said, explaining she felt it was important for her to share, “because it happens a lot in varying degrees.
In the scale of situations like that, I think it was quite mild – but it was also wrong. “Now, I’d never have a hope in hell of finding who this person was. But I’m thinking, ‘Wow, what could he have gone on to do?’ So I think it’s really important that we speak up.” After the Spice Girls – minus Victoria – hit the road for the first time in 11 years in 2019 there’s been talk of a bigger tour and of them playing Glastonbury next year. “It’s completely my wish” for all five band members to reunite once again, Mel admitted, “we still obviously have to convince Victoria... “Victoria wouldn’t mind me saying [the Olympics 2012 show] was difficult for her, she had a lot of anxiety about that performance.” Who I Am: My Story Melanie C is out now.