I grew up feeling different. My dad is from Nevis in the Caribbean, and my mum is an English rose. There weren’t that many mixed-race kids in Leeds, so I was always called horrible names: half-breed, redskin. But I was brought up with a lot of love and confidence-boosting from my parents. They said, “You be who you are.” I was nicknamed “The Breeze” as a kid, because I ran everywhere. I was hyperactive and a sponge.
We were barred from the working men’s club on our street, because my dad was Black. It gave me a proper idea of justice and of taking a moral stance. When I got into the Spice Girls, I went back to that club and said, “I’m going to report you. No, in fact I’m going to buy this place, because you didn’t let me in when I was a kid.”
The Spice Girls were a homegrown band. We lived together in a little house while we wrote our songs. Emma Bunton’s mum would bring us over beans on toast wrapped in tinfoil and we’d ask our parents for money. We’d knock on record companies’ doors and burst into a-cappella song. We even stopped Simon Cowell in a car park.
We were very different and decided to just be ourselves. I didn’t straighten my hair and I was probably one of the first people to say publicly, “I like men and women.” It was refreshing to see five girls who look completely different all getting along, singing songs they’d written that supported girls and women.
We had each other’s backs no matter what, which gave me the confidence to get out of a 10-year abusive marriage [to Stephen Belafonte. He has strongly and repeatedly denied claims that he was abusive. They divorced in 2018]. It gave me the courage to go, “Actually, you never stood for this shit before. Why are you still standing for it?” Defining moments like that are all thanks to the Spice Girls.
I’ve still got PTSD. Abusers never really leave you. What kept me going through my abusive marriage was work. I was the main breadwinner and work was my safe space.
It was surreal to get an MBE [for services to domestic violence victims]. It shows you can lend your voice to an issue close to your heart for all those people who don’t have a voice. Now I’m trying to educate the Met Police and the justice system about domestic violence. They still don’t understand it.
It’s bizarre to me that I now live back in Leeds. When we came for the Spice Girls tour in 2019, Angel [Mel’s second of three daughters] said, “Why are we living in Los Angeles when all your family lives here?” She filled out an application for a grammar school in Yorkshire and I thought, “Wow, you’re really serious.” We now live a five-minute drive from my mum, sister, aunties and uncles and have lots of family gatherings, Sunday dinners and walks in the countryside.
I felt a huge sigh of relief after getting diagnosed with anxiety, dyslexia, dyspraxia and ADHD in 2019. It means you don’t feel as alone or different or “crazy” any more. I’ve always been able to juggle 50,000 things, but also be almost too involved and too focused. There are many world leaders who have a diagnosis like mine, which shows there’s no limit to what you can achieve.
Queen of the Universe, season two, is now streaming exclusively on Paramount+
