Mel B gets brutally honest in her tell all new book
But when the chips were down, there was, and still is, one place Spice Girl Mel B would head for - Leeds.
After her split with Eddie Murphy she writes: “It had all got too much. I needed to go back to Leeds...thousands of miles away from chauffeur driven Rolls Royces, giant jacuzzis and a private chefs.”
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Hide AdBorn Melanie Brown, she grew up in Kirkstall before seeking success and stardom with arguably the most successful girl band in history.
But beneath the glitz and the glamour the singer and mother of three, 43, admits she was in “complete hell” at the hands of her then husband and manager Stephen Belafonte.
Her book, Brutally Honest, looks back at her early life, the history of her father who was born on an island called Nevis in the Caribbean, how she got in the Spice Girls, met Eddie Murphy and gives a fascinating insight into the world of a pop-star.
But behind the dollar signs, private jets, Christian Dior vintage gowns and the Bentleys there is a story that left Mel B sat cross-legged on the floor of a secret refuge in Leeds speaking to women about how she tried to kill herself to escape it all.
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Hide AdThe crux of the book is about domestic abuse, both mental and physical, how she got sucked in, how it broke her and how it was her ties to Leeds that helped her get out, the catalyst being her father dying last year.
“I felt strong, focused and fearless. ‘I’m going back to England, my dad is dying and then we’re getting a divorce’, I told Stephen...I thought about my dad. This was his final wish. I was going to live my life without fear, disrespect and shame.”