'AN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP IS SOUL-DESTROYING'

SPICE GIRL MELANIE B ON TURNING HER LIFE AROUND SINCE SPLITTING FROM HER EX AND CELEBRATING HER CLOSE FAMILY BOND

-  KENZI DEVINE

From an MBE to a marriage proposal, it’s been a full-on four years since Mel B sold up in LA and returned to live in the UK.

While she’s best known for her Scary Spice title, the former pop star is anything but as she chats warmly to OK! at her Leeds home – apologising before she dashes off temporarily to answer her doorbell.

Mel moved back to her Northern hometown after 15 years living stateside. Married to American film producer Stephen Belafonte at the time, she tells us it was a period when she was “a shell” of herself. Her 2018 memoir Brutally Honest detailed 10 years of physical, sexual, verbal and financial abuse from Stephen – who vehemently denies any wrongdoing.

“You’re told day in and day out you’re fat, you’re ugly and no one is going to want you. I had that for 10 years, as well as all the other abuse my abuser did to me,” Mel says. “Your self-esteem and worth are at zero so you have to build yourself up again, which I’m still doing to this day.

“Looking back, It was only when I got out of that relationship that I realised how bad it had all been, and then I had to embark on getting myself back to how I was before I got married,” she explains.

Now happily engaged to hairdresser Rory McPhee – who popped the question with a stunning £100K ring – Mel admits that although she’s still “building herself up” from the turmoil of her previous marriage five years on from her divorce, she’s determined to find a positive new way of looking at life.