Before Melanie Brown was Scary Spice or even Mel B, the former Spice Girls member was an adorable little girl wishing for stardom.
The America’s Got Talent judge took to Instagram last week to share a rare photo from her childhood on social media — a snapshot of herself as a young tot, squinting at the camera in a pink dress and high white socks.
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“There was a little brown girl in a council house in Leeds who dared to believe that one day she would be a star,” she captioned the photo. “If only someone had warned her what lay in store…”
Brown certainly has had a tough time after reaching the limelight, including her fraught divorce from husband Stephen Belafonte, which came after a 2014 suicide attempt she claimed came from her desire to escape her allegedly abusive marriage in her new book, Brutally Honest.
In the book, Brown says she “took nearly 200 aspirin pills” while trying to end her life the night before a major event for The X Factor.
“I’ll be wearing a beautiful dress, my hair and make-up will be perfect. But if you want the absolute truth, I don’t care about any of it. My life is a mess and I want out,” she wrote in an excerpt published in The Sun.
It was then that she began to take the medicine. “As each pill goes into my mouth, I ask myself: ‘Are you sure?’ And I take another one. Ten, 20, 50, 100. ‘Are you sure?’” she wrote. “One hundred and 20. ‘Are you sure?’ 150. Are you sure?’”
“Behind the glitter of fame, I felt emotionally battered, estranged from my family. I felt ugly and detested by the very man who once promised to love and protect me, my husband and manager Stephen,” she added, claiming that after 10 years of marriage he was threatening release library of her sex tapes.
After the 200th pill, Brown stumbled out to find people, knowing that she didn’t want to die. “I knew I didn’t want to go anywhere… Suicide was not the answer. I had to make my life count. I had to get to a hospital. I had to get those pills out of my stomach before anything happened,” she said.
In the end, doctors were able to save her life, giving her a new perspective on things.
“I’ve sent my message to Stephen,” Brown added. “There’s no going back. I’m going to leave him, get a divorce. I’m going to be free.”
The couple separated in December 2016 and she filed for divorce in March 2017, with their divorce being finalized in December 2018.
Photo credit: WireImage/Steve Granitz
