Melanie C Reveals Eating Disorder Made Her Spice Girls Days 'Joyless'

Singer Melanie Chisholm, popularly known as Mel C, Melanie C, or Sporty Spice, recently revealed that she never enjoyed her days as a Spice Girl and described them as "joyless." The singer revealed that she'd suffered from an eating disorder and felt an "element of guilt" about her fame.

Chisholm explained that at the time, she was aware that she'd gained a bit of weight but wasn't bothered about it. The disorder didn't start until after one of the group's financial backers commented on the size of her thighs. Despite the disorder, she still said that her time in the group was "incredible."

Earlier this month, the singer revealed in a podcast that she'd written about her sexual assault on the night before her first Spice Girls gig in Turkey in her memoir. She explained that she'd pushed the incident down immediately after it happened but that it resurfaced when she wrote the memoir.

Read on to find out more.

During a recent appearance on the "The Diary of a CEO" podcast (via New York Post) Chisholm revealed that her days as a Spice Girl were "joyless" because she suffered from an eating disorder. She explained that she'd always had an "element of guilt" about her fame and couldn't bring herself to enjoy it fully.

Chisholm said that her eating disorder began after one of the group's financial backers made an off-handed comment about the size of her thighs. She said, "He'd commented on the size of my thighs which was something that really shook me. I went to a performing arts college which was predominantly a dance college and the body image was an issue there."

The singer explained that she'd known girls there "with eating disorders." Chisholm said, "I'd been witness to that in my life, but it never affected me personally." That one comment changed her views on her body and affected her life significantly.

Chisholm also said that she'd always been aware that she gained weight after leaving college but that the extra weight was never a problem until the comment. So, she decided to "cut back a little bit, lose a few pounds." However, the problem was more complex than that.

Chisholm said, "But somebody actually commenting on the way I looked when I was going into a career where so much of it is about how you look really affected me. I thought, 'Well, if I'm gonna do this, I have to fit the mold,' and so then that was it. It was just a gradual thing, but it was the eating and the exercising, and that's when it began from a comment like that."

For years, Chisholm hid the secret of her disorder from the press and fans and suffered in silence. However, she explained that it wasn't all bad and that her time as a world-famous Spice Girl was "the most incredible time of my life and the hardest."

Earlier this month, Chisholm had an interview on the "How To Fail" podcast and revealed that she'd been sexually assaulted the night before her first Spice Girls performance in Istanbul. She said she'd written about the assault in her new memoir, "The Sporty One."

The 48-year-old shared that the assault took place during a massage appointment at her hotel in Turkey. She said, "Here we were, the eve of the first-ever Spice Girls show," "So I treat myself to a massage in the hotel and what happened to me, I kind of buried immediately, because there were other things to focus on."

Chisholm refused to go into detail about the incident and said that immediately after, she got up from the table and left the room before he could go further. The "Wannabe" singer said, "I didn't want to make a fuss, but also I didn't have time to deal with it."

However, with time, Chisholm kept pushing the memory of the incident away, refusing to deal with it. She said, "Because I didn't deal with it at the time, I realized that I allowed that to be buried for years and years and years, and then when I was writing the book, it came to me in a dream. I woke up and it was in my mind."

The star continued, "Then, of course, I had to think, 'Do I want to reveal this?' And I just thought, actually, I think it's really important for me to say it and to finally deal with it and process it. And for other people."