Melanie Chisholm, also known as “Mel C” and Sporty Spice from the Spice Girls, is opening up about a night she alleges led to her first live performance as a Spice Girl. was sexually assaulted.
In an interview with Elizabeth Day How to fail podcast ahead of the September 15 release of his upcoming memoir who am I., Spice Girl shared that in 1997 she was sexually assaulted by a massage therapist at a hotel spa in Istanbul. Chisholm was staying at the hotel the night before the girl group’s first live performance.
“We were in Istanbul. We did two shows there and we’ve never done a full-length concert before, so obviously we’ll be rehearsing for the next few weeks, fitting the costumes, make-up, hair, Everything was leading up to the pinnacle of what I had ever wanted to do, and ever wanted to be,” Chisholm recalled. “What made me want to go on stage was to be a performer, so here we were, at the first Spice Girls show, so I was giving myself a massage at the hotel.”
He continued, “And what happened to me – I was immediately buried, because there were other things to focus on. I didn’t want to cause a fuss but I didn’t have time to deal with it either. He added that because he “didn’t deal with it at the time,” he has since realized that night “could be buried for years and years.”
She said she didn’t think about the incident until she wrote about it for her memoir: “It came to me in a dream, or I kind of woke up and it was in my head. And I It was like, ‘Oh, my God, I didn’t even think about putting that in the book.’ Then, of course, I had to think, ‘Well, do I want to show this?’ And I just thought, actually, I think it’s really important for me to say that, and finally deal with it and process it.”
“Terrible things happen all the time and this situation was not as bad as it could have been,” he said. Although she did not share further details of the assault, she described her experience as a “mild version” of sexual assault. “But I felt violated. I felt so vulnerable. I felt ashamed. And then I didn’t believe — have I got this right? What’s going on? I was in an environment where you can’t do this profession. Take off your clothes with the person.
Chisholm went on to say that she had “a lot of thoughts and feelings” about that moment in her life, but that she eventually wanted to talk about it because of the impact it had on her: “She Affected me. But I buried it, and I’m sure a lot of people do.