Spice Girl Mel B appeared on This Morning to speak about her reunion with her sister Danielle after 10 years of silence, as well as her divorce from ex-husband Stephen Belafonte.
Mel heartbreakingly revealed that during her decade long marriage she was estranged from her sister, friends and family right from the beginning: ‘I was in a coercive, not very nice relationship and one of the kinds of things that happens in those types of relationships is that you kind of get cut off from your friends and family.’
Melanie and Danielle, described themselves as being previously ‘inseparable’, despite their five years age gap, telling hosts Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby: ‘We were together all the time and I used to babysit.’
Danielle revealed how Mel was isolated during her marriage, saying: ‘A lot of your close friends and people who worked for you, like your PA, who had always been there, kind of got pushed to one side and so it was done gradually that way and then we were the last ones to go - me, my mum and my dad.’
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‘I had to pick my battles and for me to be isolated from my family was a battle I constantly battled with, but I always lost.’ Mel explained, before opening up about what happened following the couple’s eventual divorce.
Describing rekindling her relationships with family, Mel said it was a ‘healing process’, adding ‘I did get divorced about two-and-a-half years ago and there was a lot of apologising that I had to do, especially to my sister and my mum.’
Danielle added that Stephen was very controlling, and that it was hard for the family to get in touch with Mel by any means. ‘When me, my mum and my dad would find out her phone number or find out her address, it would all then be changed. She’d change her phone number, she’d change her email or you’d get a horrible email back saying “I want nothing to do with you.”’.
‘And then later on obviously we knew it was not Melanie, it was him replying on her email.’ Danielle revealed.
Stephen released a statement calling Mel ‘a fraud’ and claiming that she did have contact with her family, to which Danielle replied and defended her sister. ‘Absolute rubbish...He’s still not stopping’.
Mel B has written a book called 'Brutally Honest', to try and educate other people about what its like to be in a controlling relationship and what a healthy one should look like.
Danielle told Phillip and Holly that their mum is ‘over the moon’, adding ‘I felt like an only child almost for ten years, but now we’re back’.
The sisters also revealed it’s been lovely having their children together too. Melanie told her sister, ‘You lost out on my kids, I lost out on your kids...I did get really angry about that, because a lot of time has been lost.’
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‘I’m trying to do catch up and make up right now, but you know, we just talk about it and that’s what we do.’ She added.
Mel B concluded the interview by saying she feels better because she is no longer ‘living a lie’, and that she’s working on healing herself along with sister Danielle.
