POP star Mel B has revealed the Spice Girls have sent Geri messages of support while her husband Christian Horner is investigated over “sexting” claims.
The Red Bull Racing chief, 50, is the focus of an internal investigation by the team into his alleged behaviour towards a female colleague.
Horner, who has led the F1 team since 2005, vehemently denies both controlling behaviour and “sexting” allegations made by the woman.
The probe saw Geri reduced to tears as news broke of the scandal but she has privately insisted Christian did nothing wrong.
Speaking to The Sun Mel, 48, revealed the Spice Girls have been in touch with Ginger Spice.
She said: “We have a WhatsApp group and we have sent messages.”
Read More on Christian Horner
When Melanie Brown walked out of her abusive ten-year marriage in 2017 she had just £700 in the bank with costly divorce and custody battles to fight.
It has taken her five years to save the cash to move out of her mum’s, and she finally exchanged on a converted farmhouse in West Yorkshire earlier this month.
Although Mel had carved out a successful career during her ten-year stint living in Los Angeles, appearing in the US version of Strictly, Dancing With The Stars, and as a judge on America’s Got Talent, she claims she lost control of her fortune while married to film producer Belafonte, 48.
Sparkling Spice
But in the wake of her split, Mel has rebuilt.
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She was Seahorse on The Masked Singer in 2021, is a judge on the show’s Australian version and this year returned to the America’s Got Talent panel.
She adds: “Luckily, I have always been a hard worker. I thoroughly enjoy my job and have thrown myself into it.
“I spend a lot of time speaking to abuse survivors and I want to show abuse, including financial abuse, can happen to anyone, and you can build yourself back up.”
Mel recalls how she went from having a loft apartment in LA, a ten-bed pile in Marlow, Bucks, and owning an impressive collection of furniture and art, to doing the weekly shop at budget stores.
She says: “In LA I hadn’t bought a pint of milk in years.
“But back home I would buy in bulk from Costco and got really into shopping in Aldi and Lidl.
After being in an abusive relationship for years you really have to rebuild yourself inside and out
Mel B
“It was Covid times and I would put on my face mask and no one would recognise me.
“I stood in a queue for the first time in a long time. No one batted an eyelid.
“After being in an abusive relationship for years you really have to rebuild yourself inside and out. Nobody can do that apart from you.
“Having to budget and learn how much a packet of crisps costs again kind of felt like me reclaiming my power.
“I felt I went back to my Leeds roots, and I have never forgotten where I came from.”
Mel also switched from Scary Spice to Sparkling Spice.
She says: “I love cleaning. If there is something abnormal going on, like I am fighting in the courts, steaming the floors or doing laundry makes me feel normal and OK.
“I’ve tried out every steamer for floors. Seeing how clean something is gives me instant gratification.”
Astonishingly, the singer had become so isolated in LA that there were everyday things she was clueless about.
She says: “I would say to people, ‘Do you know there is this service called Amazon that delivers to your door?’ And they would be like, ‘Of course!’
“But I didn’t have access to a credit card during my relationship and was working 24/7.”
Mel, awarded an MBE in 2022 for her work as a patron for domestic abuse charity Women’s Aid, says of her time with Belafonte: “I had always taken care of my own money but over time I didn’t worry about money because in my eyes he was taking care of it.
“But afterwards I realised, ‘Oh my God, I am going to have to start from scratch, Ground Zero’.”
Scary Spice admits that even when safely cocooned in her mum’s bungalow, with her ex thousands of miles away, she struggled to shake off the trauma of that relationship.
She says: “The past five years living with my mum have been intense.
“When you are in an abusive relationship it affects your whole family and I was really angry at my mum for a while.
You have to build those relationships back up and living in that small bungalow saved ours because there was no escape
Mel B
“I was like, ‘Why didn’t you come and get me when I was with Stephen?’
“But I didn’t know he was calling her and yelling at her and she didn’t know how to reach me.
“You have to build those relationships back up and living in that small bungalow saved ours because there was no escape.
“We joked it was like Last Of The Summer Wine meets One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.
“My mum would say, ‘But you’ve left him, you’re away, you’re fine’. But it isn’t like that.
“A friend once asked me what it was like being in my head.
“The only way I could describe it was it is like being in a house where a baby is crying but you can never find the room where the baby is.
“I’m a work in progress. But look how far I’ve come.
“A few years ago if a door slammed I would jump out of my skin. Now I think, ‘It’s just a door’.”
How you can get help
Women’s Aid has this advice for victims and their families:
- Always keep your phone nearby.
- Get in touch with charities for help, including the Women’s Aid live chat helpline and services such as SupportLine.
- If you are in danger, call 999.
- Familiarise yourself with the Silent Solution, reporting abuse without speaking down the phone, instead dialing “55”.
- Always keep some money on you, including change for a pay phone or bus fare.
- If you suspect your partner is about to attack you, try to go to a lower-risk area of the house – for example, where there is a way out and access to a telephone.
- Avoid the kitchen and garage, where there are likely to be knives or other weapons. Avoid rooms where you might become trapped, such as the bathroom, or where you might be shut into a cupboard or other small space.
If you are a victim of domestic abuse, SupportLine is open Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 6pm to 8pm on 01708 765200. The charity’s email support service is open weekdays and weekends during the crisis – messageinfo@supportline.org.uk.
Women’s Aid provides a live chat service – available weekdays from 8am-6pm and weekends 10am-6pm.
You can also call the freephone 24-hour National Domestic Abuse Helpline on 0808 2000 247.
Continuing hurt
A continuing hurt has been separation from youngest child Madison, since courts ruled after expensive custody wrangling that, as a US citizen, the 12-year-old must live with dad Belafonte, who also has daughter Giselle, 19.
Mel, also mum to 16-year-old Angel, from a romance with actor Eddie Murphy, and Phoenix, 25, from a previous marriage to dancer Jimmy Gulzar, now sees Madison only in school holidays.
She says: “It is like having an arm cut off. She is my baby. I have spent a fortune on legal battles but at least she spends big chunks of time here.
“In the eyes of the court I’m the big earner and have to pay his court fees as well as my own.
“I’ve been campaigning through my work on behalf of Women’s Aid for the court system to better understand financial abuse.”
Mel reached a divorce settlement in August 2018 which involved all abuse charges being dropped.
Pivotal in rebuilding her self-esteem has been her fiancé, Leeds hairdresser Rory McPhee, 36.
She says: “He is a family friend and I have known him for a long time. So there was a foundation of trust and respect.
“And he is a great hairdresser! When I came back home in 2019 he nurtured my curls back and at the same time nurtured my trust and affection, and it just grew bit by bit.
Rory can’t even understand how someone would even raise their voice to a woman
Mel B
“I kept pushing him away, saying, ‘I’m damaged goods’.
“But Rory can’t even understand how someone would even raise their voice to a woman. He is a great influence on me. If I am getting manic he can calm me.”
This year marks three decades since the Spice Girls formed and rumours of reunion gigs have been rife, although Sporty Spice (Mel C) yesterday claimed it was just talk.
Mel B adds: “All our mums get along. If there is a bit of a tiff or we get excited about something, all the mums seem to know everything first.
“My mum will be like, ‘I just got off the phone to Pauline (Baby Spice Emma Bunton’s mother) and I hear you are doing . . . ’”
Her bandmates have always been supportive.
She says: “Emma bawled her eyes out when she read my book (2018 memoir Brutally Honest).
“But there was nothing she or any of them could have done, I lied to everyone about my relationship, including myself.”
Mel says the band have recently supported Ginger Spice (Geri Horner) who has stood by her husband, Red Bull F1 boss Christian Horner, amid a probe into claims — which he vehemently denies — that he sent suggestive texts to a female colleague.
Mel says: “We have a WhatsApp group and we have sent messages.”
Mel has a packed diary this year, but many engagements seem a long way from her jet-set Spice days.
She says: “I’m going to Buckingham Palace in a few weeks for an International Women’s Day event with the Queen.
“Later in the year I am addressing the Women’s Institute at the Royal Albert Hall. It’s mad, I’m joining the Jam and Jerusalem crowd.”
READ MORE SUN STORIES
Mel’s updated Brutally Honest, written with Louise Gannon (Quadrille, £10.99), is republished in March.
Exclusive extracts are in this week’s Sun on Sunday.
