Entertainment
Mel C opens up on depression and eating disorder at height of Spice Girls fame: ‘I felt like I was losing my mind’-Emily Bashforth-Entertainment – Metro
There was a dark side to her fame.
The musician got candid about life in one of the biggest girl bands (Picture: Getty)
Melanie Chisholm – known as Mel C – has opened up about the reality of being in one of the world’s most successful groups.
The Widnes-born star was 1/5 of the Spice Girls, along with Victoria Beckham, Melanie Brown (Mel B), Emma Bunton, and Geri Halliwell.
Formed in 1994, they went on to sell millions of records worldwide, and even bagged their own movie, but there was a downside to their fame.
Mel C, aka Sporty Spice, has sold over 100million records through both her solo career and with the band, making her one of the most successful musical artists of all time – but she’s also battled a lot behind closed doors.
Speaking on Steven Bartlett’s Diary Of A CEO podcast, the singer recalled the early Spice Girls days and how ‘blessed’ she felt, but admitted there was a lot of pressure from ‘brutal’ tabloids, who called her ‘horrible things’.
Derogatory labels in the press called her ‘Sumo Spice’, as well as claiming she ‘wasn’t talented enough’ or too much of a ‘loud mouth’, all of which, ultimately, led to her becoming ‘very, very ill’ in 2003.
The Spice Girls sold millions of records worldwide, but there was a dark side to their success (Picture: WireImage)
‘Being commented on was a big factor in that journey’, she recalled, as she spoke about her exercise obsession and feeling unable to control her eating.
Becoming tearful, she told the Dragon’s Den star: ‘It’s really hard, you know. I’m always in this place where there’s an element of guilt attached to my success, and I think that’s exacerbated by people going, “Well, you’re famous, you put yourself in that position’, but the people who want to be famous are probably the ones least well equipped to deal with it.
‘We’re looking for acceptance and love and adoration, and to be that vulnerable and to put yourself in that position only to be criticised is a bad combination.’
Mel was later diagnosed with depression by a doctor, while also struggling with binge eating.
Mel C said she ‘felt like I was losing my mind’ before being diagnosed with depression (Picture: ABC via Getty Images)
‘I felt like I was losing my mind, I felt like I was actually going mad’, she shared, admitting she ‘didn’t have the words’ to express how she was feeling to a professional.
When the doctor told her she had depression, Mel felt like ‘a weight had been lifted’ as she learnt the name for what she was going through and found ‘it can be treated’.
But, her depression hasn’t just gone away, as she added: ‘My biggest fear is that really overwhelming depression where you doubt that you can make it through, beyond it’.
Speaking about life after the Spice Girls (Mel was quick to note that they haven’t officially ‘split up’), she said the rest of the girls were aware of her ‘demons’ and that she was ‘having a really hard time’ when they were working on their third album, Forever, and ultimately decided to take a break.
However, their decision not to announce a formal break up came from being ‘terrified’ of ‘press intrusion’.
‘I was on a TV show with Frank Skinner once and I used past tense I said, “When I was a Spice Girl”, or whatever the wording I used was, and the press jumped on it and there were camera crews outside my house and they chased me down the road and yeah, none of us could face that’.
Victoria Beckham last performed as a Spice Girl at the London 2012 Olympics (Picture: Toronto Star via Getty Images)
But, she said the ‘beauty’ of having that time apart meant each member could work on themselves and ‘become individuals’, as well as mums, so now when they do come back together they ‘really enjoy and respect each other’.
‘We’ve always been the Spice Girls, we will always be the Spice Girls. When people say I’m a “former Spice Girl”, I am a Spice Girl’, Mel declared proudly.
‘We will all always be Spice Girls, even Victoria. Even when she didn’t get on stage in 2019 (when the band did their reunion tour), she was still a very important part of our friendship.’
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Mel said fashion designer Victoria (Posh Spice) was ‘very supportive’ of the band getting back together that year, despite not wanting to perform herself, and it was ‘really important to us to make sure she was happy’.
The Wannabe hitmaker added that it was an ‘incredible experience’ to perform for their fans again and with rumours swirling that another reunion might be on the cards, we wonder if it might not actually be that long until the Spice Girls are swinging, shaking, moving, and making it on stage once more.
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