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She made her fortune as one of many Spice Girls, topping charts all over the world with hits together with “Wannabe” and “Spice Up Your Life”, however Mel B says she was left with subsequent to nothing after leaving her marriage.
The singer born Melanie Brown left California after splitting from ex-husband Stephen Belafonte, accusing him of home abuse. Belafonte has at all times denied the allegations.
Brown has since made her method back to a stage of monetary safety she by no means thought she would expertise once more, following a profitable Spice Girls reunion and the publication of her 2018 memoir, Brutally Honest.
But the “Viva Forever” artist, 48, instructed the BBC that she was left in a “powerless” state of affairs” after her divorce was finalised, and that the choice to move house got here because the Spice Girls reunion was going down in 2019.
Proceeds from the exhibits had been apparently being spent on authorized charges and funds to Belafonte, a movie producer, together with a lump sum of £274,000 plus £3,900 a month in youngster assist for his or her daughter, Madison.
“I wasn’t just emotionally and physically abused, there was all the financial abuse too,” she stated. “I didn’t realise that I didn’t have as much money as I thought I had. So I literally had to eat humble pie, live with my mum.”
Former Spice Girl and patron of Women’s Aid, Melanie Brown (Lucy North/PA)
(PA Wire)
She continued: “My mum was the kind of person that would say, ‘Oh you’ve left him now, you’re fine’. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.
“Obviously any situation is better than being with your abuser, but when you’ve left that kind of abusive situation, it’s like starting all over again. You have to learn to trust people. You have to learn to trust yourself.”
Brown stated that being back in her hometown of Leeds had helped her discover her toes: “My mum’s one of seven so I’m surrounded by friends, family, aunties, uncles, nephews, nieces – the whole nine yards,” she defined.
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“Leeds is beautiful, it’s so green and so down to earth and people, I just find them warmer.”
Brown just lately spoke about how she and her former bandmates had been at the moment rallying round “Ginger Spice”, Geri Halliwell, amid the F1 scandal surrounding her husband, Christian Horner.
Mel B says the Spice Girls are supporting Geri Halliwell by means of a tricky time
(Getty Images)
She additionally introduced in February that she had lastly been ready to purchase her own residence, after working “bloody hard” for greater than 5 years.
“I still love shopping in Aldi and Lidl, I don’t think I’m ever going to stop doing that to be honest. I’m still a Leeds girl!” she instructed the BBC.
The singer, referred to as “Scary Spice” throughout her time with the Nineties woman group, opened up about her work as an anti-domestic abuse campaigner throughout a panel held in recognition of the fiftieth anniversary of the charity Women’s Aid.
“Before, it was like ‘all right Scary’, now I get women coming up to me literally in tears telling me their story when I’m in Aldi or Sainsbury’s,” Brown stated of the response to her work as a campaigner.
”Now, it’s extra of a dialog. It’s not likely the dialog that you really want to be having however I’m so glad that I’m experiencing that and I can speak about it.”
Brown acquired an MBE in 2022 for providers to charitable causes and weak ladies, and have become a patron of Women’s Aid in 2018.
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