{"id":256457,"date":"2026-01-25T05:23:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T05:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/256457\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T05:23:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T05:23:12","slug":"mel-c-on-body-image-finding-love-and-the-spice-girls-whatsapp-group","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/256457\/","title":{"rendered":"Mel C on body image, finding love and the Spice Girls\u2019 WhatsApp group"},"content":{"rendered":"

Melanie Chisholm has never looked hotter than she does in the video for her comeback single, Sweat, an ultra-camp tribute to Jane Fonda workouts and Eric Prydz\u2019s Call on Me. Chisholm \u2014 52 years old and ripped to the heavens: abs, quads, biceps, glutes, all of it, honed beyond belief \u2014 frolics and cavorts on an exercise bike and bench presses barbells surrounded by admiring trainer dudes clad in Union Jack budgie-smugglers. She donkey kicks in ankles weights, spike-heeled booties and outrageously saucy unitard. The song, a dance track that could be about training, but \u2014 guess what? \u2014 could also be about sex (\u201cI\u2019ll make you, I\u2019ll make you sweat\u201d etc), is fun and silly and compulsive, and while Chisholm definitely does not take herself too seriously, the whole effect is, nonetheless, outrageously sexy. Sporty Spice \u2014 but absolutely not as you know her.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this is the most courageous I\u2019ve ever been in a video,\u201d she tells me. What made her so courageous, I ask. \u201cI think it\u2019s because I\u2019m 50. I look like this \u2014 and it\u2019s powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n

We\u2019re sitting in the restaurant of a private members\u2019 club in central London. Chisholm is, oh, everything you\u2019d expect of her. Glossy and socially competent in the way of someone who has spent decades dealing with the media, on top of early, formative years in a stage school; but also just sweet. Obviously, genuinely warm, with nothing left to hide, minimal f***s left to give; Scouse-accented, though she grew up in Cheshire (she was born in Whiston in Merseyside, in 1974, but raised in Widnes, Cheshire) and has lived in London since she moved there, aged 16, to study dance; bare-faced \u2014 she\u2019s off for a facial afterwards, cashing in a Dr Barbara Sturm facial (\u201ca free one I got in a goodie bag\u201d); and a smiler, easy with eye contact. She\u2019s wearing an Adidas tracksuit, a fancy one, crisp and structured to the point of seeming almost tailored. It\u2019s either a collab I can\u2019t identify or one that Chisholm has customised with her stylist and creative director, Graham Cruz. \u201cHe\u2019s been incredible for me, because he\u2019s really allowed me to embrace Sporty, but also to evolve. I used to feel like, if I was in a tracksuit, it was like I was the fancy-dress version of myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 Read music reviews, interviews and guides on what to listen to next<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Melanie<\/p>\n

Leather dress, price on application, Marine Serre. Gold shoes (throughout), \u00a3845, Christian Louboutin<\/p>\n

CLAIRE ROTHSTEIN<\/p>\n

\"Melanie<\/p>\n

Nude tube dress, \u00a3215, Wolford. Crystal mesh dress, \u00a31,600, Ports 1961<\/p>\n

CLAIRE ROTHSTEIN<\/p>\n

I feel like I\u2019m witnessing the birth of a new era of Melanie Chisholm, I tell her. That video \u2014 the title single from her new album, a record of solid, undeniable dance tracks \u2014 that body, that courage, that \u2026 no longer feeling like a \u201cfancy-dress version\u201d of herself.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really feels like that,\u201d Chisholm says. \u201cIt really does. For a long time I wanted everyone to see there was more to me than Sporty Spice. I was fighting with that for a long time, dealing with my own demons \u2026 But I\u2019ve realised Sporty Spice is a huge part of who I am, and rather than throw that over there, embrace it. Embrace all parts of yourself!\u201d She smiles. She seems to be in a very good place. \u201cI thought 40 was amazing. Then 50 came. I was like, this is so much better!\u201d But what about youth? The Nineties? The Spice Girls? \u201cIt was a rocky road at times,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Watch Melanie C rank her most iconic looks<\/p>\n

Melanie Chisholm always wanted to be famous. \u201cAbsolutely, 100 per cent.\u201d Her mum, Joan, is a singer, her dad, Alan, a bass player: \u201cI used to go and watch Mum, she used to play every Friday and Saturday night, and I was so proud of her. Nobody else\u2019s mum was a singer, I thought it was very glamorous. But I knew how hard it was to succeed in music. So I thought, \u2018You know what? Theatre\u2019s a more sensible choice.\u2019 That was my young brain.\u201d Like, theatre was accountancy or something? \u201cRight? I was thinking West End.\u201d Cats! \u201cYes!\u201d<\/p>\n

Aged 16, she won a place at the Doreen Bird College of Performing Arts in London. While there she discovered raving: \u201cHouse music, on a girls\u2019 holiday in Spain. Summer of \u201990, or \u201991? Costa Brava, and it was kind of bubbling everywhere. We\u2019d never heard music like that \u2014 I was with all dancers \u2014 and being in a place where it\u2019s not all 1980s step-touch round your handbag? It was a new world.\u201d Just as she was beginning to immerse herself in rave culture, \u201cthe Spice Girls happened, and our lives weren\u2019t our own for a few years\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Melanie<\/p>\n

Trench coat, \u00a33,990, Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello. Earrings, \u00a3300, Isabel Marant<\/p>\n

CLAIRE ROTHSTEIN<\/p>\n

\"Melanie<\/p>\n

Tuxedo dress, \u00a32,800, Givenchy by Sarah Burton<\/p>\n

CLAIRE ROTHSTEIN<\/p>\n

You surely know the story of how the Spice Girls \u2014 one of the most culturally transformative, socially and economically disruptive (eruptive?) forces of the 20th century, up there with the Beatles<\/a>; it\u2019s culturally snobbish and also just wrong to deny it \u2014 were formed? How in 1994 400 young women answered a call-out in The Stage magazine and five were selected: Melanie Brown, Geri Halliwell, Victoria Adams (now Beckham) and Emma Bunton, in addition to Chisholm. How they got frustrated with their original management, sacked them, toured some other companies and signed up with Virgin. They exploded on to the world in 1996 with the beautiful, preposterous, compulsive chaos of their first single, Wannabe, landed a multi-platinum album with their debut, Spice, and went on to rule the charts and the hearts of young women and gay men everywhere for four long years. They continue to matter, continue to captivate and obsess on multiple levels \u2014 from the ructions of the Beckham family\u2019s fallout with their eldest son, Brooklyn<\/a>, to my neighbour\u2019s 17-year-old daughter, whom I bumped into on my way to this interview and when she learnt of my mission screamed, \u201cTell her I love her! Tell her I\u2019ve been listening to them since I was four years old.\u201d<\/p>\n

But if it was wildly exciting and incredibly fun for those of us watching, for the Spice Girls themselves the experience of such sudden, vast fame was a bit overwhelming. \u201cWe were in survival mode,\u201d Chisholm tells me. \u201cWork, work, work.\u201d<\/p>\n

I have wondered about the murky truth of superstardom in the Nineties, a time when safeguarding just wasn\u2019t a thing. Teenagers \u2014 particularly teenage girls \u2014 weren\u2019t regarded as the children nearly all of them actually were, and mental health was simply not a consideration. In the run up to this interview I watched Girlbands Forever, the BBC\u2019s brilliant three-part documentary about girl band culture \u2014 intensely nostalgic but also a shocking exposure of the worst aspects of how the music industry treated the young women it was elevating to stardom. The manipulation, exploitation, enforced diets, pressure to have abortions.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Victoria Beckham: \u2018It takes a lot to make me cry, but I did cry<\/a>\u2019<\/p>\n

\"Prince<\/p>\n

The Spice Girls with Prince Charles in 1997<\/p>\n

CLAIRE ROTHSTEIN<\/p>\n

Was that the Spice Girls\u2019 experience? \u201cNo, we called the shots.\u201d You did? \u201cOh yeah. But I was shocked. I did a panel a couple of years ago with Leigh-Anne [Pinnock] from Little Mix, Shaznay [Lewis] from All Saints, Nicola [Roberts] from Girls Aloud and Keisha [Buchanan] from the Sugababes. I was shocked to hear their stories. Their stories made my blood boil! The experiences they had? I went, \u2018What the f***? The Spice Girls, did it mean nothing?\u2019 We thought we were paving the way for everyone else.\u201d<\/p>\n

In what way? \u201cWhen we started we were wet behind the ears. \u2018We wanna be famous! We wanna be famous!\u2019 Then people started saying things like, \u2018Girls don\u2019t really sell records, not like boy bands. You\u2019ll never be on the cover of Smash Hits, because girls buy the magazine.\u2019 And we were like, \u2018F*** that!\u2019 And we started talking about \u2018girl power\u2019. When you\u2019re in a band you have to figure out who you are, and we were like, \u2018We have to be a girl band, for girls.\u2019 \u201d One that made the industry reconsider where women stood within it, how powerful they could be and how they deserved to be treated.<\/p>\n

\u201cI look back and I think, \u2018Wow, you were lucky.\u2019 But I also think we were petrifying. There was something about the energy of the five of us.\u201d You think people were scared of you? \u201cYes, I do.\u201d You were sort of unknowable, unpredictable, rogue, I say. Like that time Geri pinched Prince Charles\u2019s bottom. \u201cWe\u2019d quite revel in that. We were from majority working-class backgrounds, we were going to make music in this heavily male-dominated industry. We had to go in, all guns blazing, make the impact. Sometimes we laugh and go, \u2018How did we get away with it?\u2019 But it had to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Melanie<\/p>\n

Leather jacket, \u00a3990, and trousers, \u00a3925, Situationist. Red patent leather shoes, \u00a3690, Christian Louboutin<\/p>\n

CLAIRE ROTHSTEIN<\/p>\n

\"Melanie<\/p>\n

Cutout dress, \u00a32,350, Roberto Cavalli. Tights, \u00a323, Wolford<\/p>\n

CLAIRE ROTHSTEIN<\/p>\n

Like pretty much every celebrity I have ever met, Melanie Chisholm has suffered on account of fame, perhaps as much as she has benefited from it. Perhaps more. \u201cI\u2019ve had some very lonely times in my life,\u201d she tells me. \u201cI\u2019ve had some very difficult times.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Spice Girls fizzled out at the end of the Nineties<\/a>, in a tangle of solo projects that followed the official departure of Geri Halliwell in 1998. In the months before the band\u2019s demise, Chisholm developed issues related to eating, associated with the endless, cruel scrutiny of the tabloid press. \u201cI was exercising more, eating less, getting smaller and smaller.\u201d<\/p>\n

Does she think that would have happened to her if she hadn\u2019t been famous? \u201cNo, I don\u2019t think it would.\u201d I wonder if the other Spice Girls realised what was happening to her, if they tried to raise it. \u201cYes, absolutely, it was a very physical thing, very noticeable. When you\u2019re with each other for so much time and your eating habits change, they\u2019re aware. They did try to speak to me, but I wasn\u2019t ready to hear it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 The original Sugababes: \u2018There was a lot of trauma for everyone\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

Chisholm reached rock bottom, she says, after the band ended, when she was trying to find an identity and a career beyond Sporty Spice. She was devastatingly lonely, working and working and neglecting her social life to the point where \u201cI\u2019d come home, and it was just me\u201d. By the millennium new year things had reached breaking point. \u201cI was with my family in LA and I couldn\u2019t get out of bed. I was crying and crying. I\u2019d started having a binge-eating disorder, but I didn\u2019t understand it.\u201d Finally she sought professional help, was diagnosed with both clinical depression and disordered eating, and slowly began to heal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was pregnant with Scarlet [her daughter, now 16], that was such a huge moment, because for the first time in my life I was proud of my body. I was like, wow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scarlet\u2019s father is the property developer Thomas Starr. He and Chisholm were together for ten years before splitting in 2012, when Scarlet was three. Chisholm was in a seven-year relationship from 2015 with Joe Marshall, who was also her manager. \u201cSo that was complicated,\u201d she says. For the past two years she has been in a relationship with the Australian model Chris Dingwall.<\/p>\n

\"Chris<\/p>\n

Melanie Chisholm with her boyfriend, the Australian model Chris Dingwall<\/p>\n

DAVE BENETT\/GETTY IMAGES FOR HARPERS BAZAAR UK<\/p>\n

Are you in love? \u201cI mean, of course!\u201d They met on the celebrity dating app Raya. Is dating as a celebrity a nightmare? I don\u2019t understand how famous people do it. \u201cI don\u2019t understand how anyone does it. When I found myself single, you know what it\u2019s like. You\u2019re like, \u2018Not interested, I don\u2019t want to meet anyone ever again.\u2019 Did that for a bit. Then, a night out with the girlfriends, oh, you\u2019ve got to get back in the game! Made me a profile.\u201d She met Chris quickly \u2014 \u201cluckily\u201d, as she was already getting tired of men messaging her, \u201cmaking references to, like, \u2018Ooh, Spicy!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Dingwall was based in Sydney, Chisholm in north London, but \u201cI had a DJ tour booked in Australia\u201d. They met up, went for dinner, \u201cBeen together ever since.\u201d He is good for her because he is incredibly calm, she says. Might she marry him? \u201cYou know what? It\u2019s something I didn\u2019t think would be part of my story. But I\u2019m so happy with Chris. Maybe it is something that will be in my life. I just think, just do all the things. Do you know what I mean? Have all the experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n

We talk Botox (we\u2019re both fans), the injectables Profilho and polynucleotides (her favourites), and potential plastic surgery. \u201cI\u2019m not against surgery, though I am terrified of it,\u201d she says. \u201cAlthough, sign me up for that bloody Kris Jenner facelift. I would definitely have that. Actually, I\u2019m not terrified of surgery, I just don\u2019t have time for the downtime.\u201d We talk shopping. \u201cI was in Urban Outfitters with Scarlet about four years ago and I was like, \u2018This is just my wardrobe from the Nineties.\u2019 And she said, \u2018Shut up, Mum, it\u2019s not all about you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

I ask if Scarlet is showing any signs of following Chisholm into the music industry; she shakes her head. \u201cSo relieved! It\u2019s so hard to be in the shadow of a parent who\u2019s had success.\u201d The nepo baby stuff? \u201cOh, we kind of embrace nepo baby. F*** it, let\u2019s go for nepo baby! The thing is, with Scarlet, she\u2019s not in the public eye. I made that conscious decision when she was a baby. Obviously I have friends who handle it very differently, each to their own, no judgment at all. But for me, probably because of my experiences with fame, I didn\u2019t feel comfortable making that decision for her.\u201d<\/p>\n

And of course we talk about the Spice Girls. How close are you now? \u201cWith the other girls? It fluctuates. Like any friendship group. I\u2019ve always been really close to Emma.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 Spice Girl Emma Bunton on dancing around the kitchen to her own tunes<\/a><\/p>\n

Are they in a WhatsApp group? \u201cI got in hot water recently. I did an interview with Emma and I said, \u2018Oh, you know there\u2019s always a WhatsApp group without you in it, right?\u2019 And she was like, no! But what I was trying to say to Emma is, \u2018You\u2019re the only person who is in all the WhatsApps.\u2019 She is that person. She\u2019s never acting up. Everyone else is acting up at some point, but she\u2019s the one who never acts up.\u201d<\/p>\n

When was the last time she acted up? \u201cIt\u2019s going to be when all this press comes out.\u201d I ask her to give me an example of a Spice Girls WhatsApp group name \u2014 one of the ones she\u2019s in. \u201cThere\u2019s one Mel [B] started, called My Idea, because everything\u2019s always her idea, allegedly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Melanie<\/p>\n

Print catsuit, \u00a3880, Pucci<\/p>\n

PHOTOGRAPHS: CLAIRE ROTHSTEIN. STYLING: RAY TETAUIRA<\/p>\n

She says she has watched the Victoria Beckham<\/a> Netflix documentary: \u201cWe went to the premiere.\u201d Was that the last time you were all together? Yes. What\u2019s it like? \u201cWell, that was a public event. It\u2019s more fun when it\u2019s just us, and we haven\u2019t changed. It\u2019s like family. You know when you go home and you just fall back into those roles?\u201d<\/p>\n

You hate them and you love them and you switch allegiances in a heartbeat and gang up against someone else because it\u2019s funny? \u201cExactly. People say, \u2018Oh, are you still friends?\u2019 It\u2019s more than that. It runs so much deeper. We drive each other mad, you know? Someone is often acting up, and they have to get pulled back into line, but we\u2019d probably go [to war] for each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Professionally, and personally, things seem pretty perfect for her. She tells me she loves DJing, \u201cwhich I\u2019ve been doing for the past eight years\u201d, and which inspired this album of dance music. She says it\u2019s like she\u2019s picking up that love of raving from where she left off, just before the Spice Girls happened.<\/p>\n

And of course I ask her about a future possible Spice reunion. Chisholm has told me that the 2019 reunion tour was wonderful, the first time they\u2019d had the time, space and perspective of age to appreciate \u201cthe legacy we\u2019d created. My personal view on this? It\u2019s a public disservice for the Spice Girls to not get back on stage together. You\u2019re speaking to the wrong person, because I\u2019m there, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n

OK, so who do I need to speak to? Victoria? It\u2019s Victoria, isn\u2019t it? Melanie Chisholm tilts her head and arches an eyebrow. It\u2019s Victoria. <\/p>\n

Melanie C\u2019s album Sweat is out on May 1. She plays the 02 Academy Brixton, London, on October 23<\/p>\n

Hair Roxane Attard Make-up Mari Kuno at Saint Luke Artists Nails Sabrina Gayle Set design Nicholas Rogers Local production MiniContent<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Melanie Chisholm has never looked hotter than she does in the video for her comeback single, Sweat, an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[146,85,46,409],"class_list":{"0":"post-256457","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}