Although it's been years since her divorce, the Spice Girls member is still struggling to shake off the shadow from her past marriage which she claimed to be abusive.
- Nov 5, 2023
AceShowbiz - Melanie Brown's confidence hit "rock bottom" during her marriage to Stephen Belafonte. The 48-year-old pop star was wed to producer Stephen, 48, from 2007 until 2017 in what she has alleged was an abusive relationship - although he has always denied the claims -and admitted that it had taken her "a long time" to rebuild her self-esteem after years of being the subject of "humiliation and ridicule."
"I've been through a lot but I'm still standing. You can be in an abusive relationship or environment for just an hour, or a day- or 10 years in my case and those horrible words will still stick," she told Top Sante magazine.
"I was humiliated and ridiculed, called fat, ugly and disgusting, and even though I'm now seven years out of my marriage, it's taken a long time for me to rebuild my confidence because it was at rock bottom - I don't think it could have gotten any lower. I still go to my local Women's Aid shelter for therapy, or to just hang out with the women there because they've been through the same thing I've been through."
The Spice Girls singer - who in 2022 received an MBE for services to charitable causes and vulnerable women - went on to recall that during her time as Scary Spice in the 1990s pop group she would be very "extreme" but has embraced "balance" in more recent years.
She added, "I think my personality was very extreme in the past. I was very 'all or nothing.' I'd either eat junk food or eat healthily, work out or do nothing, sleep for a couple of hours or sleep all day, and I knew that wasn't sustainable."
"So, I've had to find balance between sleep, socialising and being a hermit, which I love! My top priority right now is getting my sleep and circadian rhythm on point because when I do, everything else falls into place. It's all about - and I hate this word but I've learned to love it - balance."
