10 March 2024 , 13:26
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Spice Girl Melanie Brown says she had furious rows with her mum because she wasn’t getting the sympathy she needed after leaving her abusive marriage.
The pop star, 48, was forced to move into mum Andrea’s bungalow in 2019 with her three kids after her divorce from Stephen Belafonte left her homeless. The ongoing trauma of having survived abuse left Melanie suffering from horrible anger and resentment.
She and her mum had awful rows, as Andrea couldn’t understand why her daughter wasn’t able to move on now she had her freedom, the star admits. The star says: “Rebuilding relationships is hard. When I first moved in with her, my mum would say to me: ‘You’re fine now, you’ve left him, what’s wrong with you?’
“Because on paper I haven’t got the possibility of death over there with my abuser, I’m away from him. But it’s not as simple as that. I had this horrible anger towards my mum. I’d tell her, ‘If it was my kids I wouldn’t have let that happen’, and my mum would go, ‘But you did let that happen’.”
Melanie, who split from American Stephen in 2017 after 10 years and moved back to her hometown of Leeds from LA, says she and Andrea got through their problems with re-education. Melanie had to first understand the abuse herself before she could explain it to Andrea. She says: “The star is now a passionate advocate for supporting women who have survived abuse.
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Mel B at the "America's Got Talent" Red Carpet at the Hotel Dena on September 20, 2023 in Pasadena, California (Variety via Getty Images)Patron of charity Women’s Aid, she was made an MBE in 2022 for services to charitable causes and vulnerable women. And through her work she recognises the feelings she had in the survivors she meets.
She says: “I met one woman in a refuge who was in exactly the same mindset I was in then – she absolutely hated her mother, and was saying, ‘Why didn’t she come and save me? I’m not going to let her see my kids’. I said to her, ‘You have to calm that down. You don’t know what your abuser said to your mum.’” In 2018, Melanie reached a divorce settlement which involved all abuse charges being dropped.
Since rebuilding her life – and releasing her best-selling memoir Brutally Honest – the star, whose hits include Mama, has found love again. Hairdresser and family friend Rory McPhee, 36, has supported her tirelessly in spite of all the barriers she put up at the start of their relationship.
Former Spice Girl Melanie Brown poses with her mother Andrea Brown after she was made an MBE (Getty Images)She says: “There were times early on when I would flinch at a touch, and I’d have to go, ‘It’s not you’, and he’d go, ‘Let’s talk about it’, and I would explain when I was touched like that before, this would happen. And he’d say, ‘I would never do that to you.’ He’s kind and caring. This is a guy who doesn’t understand why a man would shout at a woman.” The couple are set to tie the knot at St Paul’s Cathedral in London, having been granted permission due to her MBE.
She says: “It’s such a beautiful church. I was nervous even going through the process with the chaplain. But the chaplain actually said, ‘You have a really beautiful relationship’ and seemed really happy for us that we had found each other. As we walked out, I said to Rory, ‘That was really traditional’, and he said, ‘Don’t worry. I’ve got your back’.”
The version of Brutally Honest by Melanie Brown and Louise Gannon (Quadrille, £10.99) with bonus new chapters is out now