Mel C revealed she was sexually assaulted the night before the Spice Girls’ first performance

Melanie Chisholm, aka ‘Mel C’ and ‘Sporty Spice’ of the Spice Girls, talks about the night she claims she was sexually assaulted before her first live performance as the Spice Girl.

In an interview with Elizabeth Day how to fail podcast ahead of the September 15th release of her upcoming memoir Who am IThe Spice Girl shared that she was sexually assaulted by a masseuse at a spa hotel in Istanbul, Turkey in 1997. Chisholm was staying at the hotel the night before the girl group’s first live performance.

“We were in Istanbul. We’ve done two shows and we’ve never done a full show before, so obviously we’ve been rehearsing for weeks, adjusting the costumes, the makeup, the hair, everything is going to the height of what I want. always wanted to do. And I’ve always wanted to be,” Chisholm recalled. “What motivates me is being on stage, performing, so here we were, the day before the Spice Girls’ first show, so I’m treating myself to a massage at the hotel.”

He continued: “And what happened to me, I immediately buried it, because the focus was on something else. He didn’t want to make a fuss, but he didn’t have time to deal with it either. He added that because he “didn’t deal with it at the time”, he later realized he allowed that night “to be buried for years and years and years”.

According to him, he didn’t think about the incident until he wrote it down for his memoir: “It happened to me in a dream, or I somehow woke up and it was on my mind. And I was like, “Oh my God, I didn’t even think about that in the book.” So of course I had to think, “Well, do I want to reveal this? I just thought, actually, I think it’s really important for me to come out and finally deal with it and process it.”

“Terrible things happen all the time and this situation wasn’t as bad as it could have been,” he said. Although he did not share further details of the attack, he described his experience as a “softer version” of sexual assault. “But I felt offended. I felt very vulnerable. I felt uncomfortable. And then I felt like I wasn’t sure, did I do it right? What’s happening? I was in an environment where you take your clothes off with this professional.”

Chisholm went on to say that there were “a lot of thoughts and feelings” about that moment in her life, but in the end she wanted to share and talk about the impact it had on her: “It affected me. But I did, and I’m sure… a lot of people do.