Spice Girls' Melanie C says she was sexually assaulted before band's debut performance

Melanie Jayne Chisholm or Melanie C, also known as Sporty Spice due to her membership of the 1990s' British pop sensation Spice Girl, has revealed that she was sexually assaulted before the band's debut performance by a masseur. She made the revelation while appearing on the How To Fail podcast. On the podcast, she was promoting her memoir 'Who I Am', which is named after the lead single from her eighth album, 'Melanie C'. She told the host Elizabeth Day, “What happened to me, I kind of buried immediately, because there was other things to focus on. Everything was leading towards the pinnacle of everything I’d ever wanted to do.”

She added, "I didn’t want to make a fuss, but also I didn’t have time to deal with it. I think it’s really important to me to say it and to 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."

Chisholm, along with Mel B, Geri Halliwell, and Victoria Adams (now Beckham) created the pop group Spice Girls. It instantly became a phenomenon. The group's style of mixing dance with singing and the 'girl power' brand of female empowerment was wholeheartedly embraced by music lovers around the world. The debut album of the band Spice (1996) sold 23 million copies worldwide. It remains the best-selling girl group album in history.

While the band broke up in 2000, the band has reunited several times. Most recently, in 2021, 'Spice25', an album that collects unreleased demos and remixes, was released by the group.