Former Spice Girls star Melanie C has opened up about her struggle with depression and an eating disorder, 17 years after being diagnosed with the condition.
The pop star opened up about dealing with the success of being part of the world's most popular girl band, saying she felt relieved when she was diagnosed with depression in 2000, after not feeling well for some time.
Mel explained that she sought help following a trip away with her family when she cried and binged a lot.
'Literally my thoughts were "I'm losing it, I'm going mad, I can't cope", so when I got home I went to my GP and for the first time ever I said out loud what was going on with me, and he said "OK, well the first thing we need to address is your depression", and this huge weight was lifted from my shoulders...', she told Bryony Gordon on her Mad World podcast that focuses on mental health.
'I felt so relieved because I just thought "oh my God it's got a name, it's something, I can be helped", you know, it was such a relief to me.'
As well as dealing with depression, the mum-of-one also spoke about how the pressure to become the 'perfect' popstar caused her to develop an eating disorder.
'What happened with the Spice Girls it's something that completely turned your world upside down and it was a fantasy, it was a fairytale, and it was something that I'd always wanted.
'I think when you're young, and you have these dreams and aspirations you don't really think of the negatives, and everything has a negative...', she said.
'So that all ended up in me not eating properly and exercising obsessively, because I thought I had to be a certain way to be deserving of everything that was happening to me... to be a popstar I had to be perfect, and that was my way of trying to achieve perfection.'
Melanie explained how she would never starve herself but wouldn't eat properly and lived on 'adrenaline'.
'I'd never starved myself, but I wasn't eating properly and I was exercising obsessively and all of my time with the Spice Girls I think I was probably living on adrenaline, God only knows how I got through it and I think my body just got to the point where it was like - enough.'
