Melanie C

• 1. Introduction

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  In 1994, Melanie Jayne Chisholm, known as Melanie C, joined around 400 women answering an advertisement in The Stage magazine. The advertisement came from two managers hoping to form a new girl group. That group became the Spice Girls, and the young woman from the north of England became Sporty Spice. Her career has since sold over 130 million records. Yet the band's story, enormous as it was, covers only part of hers. What did she do when the best-selling female group of all time went on hiatus? How did she build a record label of her own, and what led a pop star to the DJ booth?

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• 2. Northern Roots

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  Melanie Jayne Chisholm was born on the 12th of January 1974 in Whiston, Lancashire. Her mother, Joan Tuffley Chisholm O'Neill, was a singer who also worked as a secretary and personal assistant. Her father, Alan William Chisholm, was a fitter for the Otis Elevator Company. Her parents married in 1971 and separated in 1978, when she was four years old.

  Widnes, in Cheshire, is where she grew up. She attended Brookvale Junior School in nearby Runcorn, then Fairfield High School in Widnes.

  London's Doreen Bird College of Performing Arts offered her a diploma course in singing, dancing and musical theatre. She left just short of finishing the three-year programme. Later she earned teaching qualifications in tap and modern theatre dance through the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing.

  Her mother remarried and had more children. Among them is the racing driver Paul O'Neill, who would later appear alongside Chisholm in Celebrity Gogglebox.

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• 3. Sporty Spice

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  A tracksuit, athletic shoes and a long dark ponytail worn high gave Chisholm her nickname. She added a tough-girl attitude and tattoos on both arms. A black Christian cross sits on her left arm. On her upper right arm are two Chinese characters, meaning female and force, which together express the phrase girl power. She could also perform back handsprings, so the label rested on real athletic ability.

  Chris and Bob Herbert, who placed the advertisement, ran a company called Heart Management. Chisholm, Melanie Brown, Geri Halliwell and Victoria Adams were chosen first, and Emma Bunton later made the group a quintet. Insecure about having no contract, and frustrated with the Herberts' direction, the women severed ties with them. In 1995 they negotiated with record labels in London and Los Angeles before signing with Virgin.

  Wannabe, the first single, reached number 1 in 37 countries. The debut album, Spice, peaked at number 1 in more than 17 countries and went multi-Platinum in 27. It sold 30 million copies, the biggest total ever for a girl group, and centred on the idea of Girl Power. Observers compared the frenzy to Beatlemania. Say You'll Be There, 2 Become 1, Who Do You Think You Are and Mama all reached number 1 in the UK.

  Spiceworld arrived in 1997 and entered the UK Albums Chart at number 1. It sold 20 million copies worldwide. The group's film, Spiceworld: The Movie, earned $100 million at the box office and was the second most watched movie of the year. Stop, at number two, was the only single in this run to miss the top. Viva Forever was another number 1, and the last single before Halliwell left in May 1998. As a foursome, they released Goodbye, which topped the UK Singles Chart before Christmas 1998. That made three Christmas number 1s in a row, equalling a record set by the Beatles.

  In October 1997, on the eve of the first Girl Power! Live in Istanbul show, Chisholm was sexually assaulted during a massage at a hotel in Turkey. She revealed this only in September 2022, while promoting her autobiography. On Elizabeth Day's podcast, How to Fail, she explained that she buried it at the time because other demands pressed on her. She said: "I do want to talk about it because it has affected me."

  Three hours a day at the gym was how Chisholm once coped with the pressure. She has spoken openly about an eating disorder, and about the toll of press attention. She recalled: "When the papers started calling me 'Sumo Spice', I was only a size 10." In a 2022 interview with The Cut, she said: "It took me such a long time to recover."

  Cool Britannia was the media's phrase for the mood around Tony Blair's new Labour government. The Spice Girls did not cause it, but they added to Britain's rebranding and highlighted the rising popularity of British pop over American pop. They broke through when alternative rock, hip-hop and R&B ruled the charts, and they aimed their music at early Millennials. They are credited with the wave of teen pop acts that followed, including Hanson, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and NSYNC. In Britain they inspired All Saints, B*Witched, Atomic Kitten, Girls Aloud and Sugababes. Later artists such as Little Mix, Billie Eilish and Adele name them as a major influence. The group's records have sold over 100 million copies.

  Forever, the third album, arrived in late 2000 with an edgier R&B sound and sold 5 million copies. Holler and Let Love Lead the Way both went to number 1 in the UK. Then the group announced an indefinite hiatus, a pause that would last until 2007.

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• 4. Northern Star

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  On the 30th of November 1998, the Canadian rock singer Bryan Adams released When You're Gone with Chisholm as featured vocalist. It was her first solo project. The song peaked at number 3 on the UK Singles Chart, spent fifteen weeks in the Top 40 and went Platinum.

  In 1999 she signed with Virgin and spent the summer recording her debut album, Northern Star. Along the way she recorded Ga Ga for the film Big Daddy, which was released as a UK-only promotional single on the 25th of June. She also co-wrote and sang backing vocals on (Hey You) Free Up Your Mind, performed by Emma Bunton for Pokémon: The First Movie.

  Goin' Down, released on the 27th of September 1999, was her first solo single proper. It reached number 4 in the UK and number 25 in Australia. Giuseppi Capotondi directed the video, which was shot in Los Angeles. Northern Star followed on the 18th of October 1999, peaking at number 4 and earning triple Platinum in the UK. It has sold over four million copies worldwide. The title track, the second single, also reached number 4.

  Madonna is the artist Chisholm calls her biggest musical influence, praising how hard she works and what a strong woman she is. For this first album she also named Blur, Oasis, Suede and the Cardigans. Diana Ross is another major influence. Her voice has been called versatile and distinctive, and "full of flex and snap".

  Never Be the Same Again, a contemporary R&B song featuring TLC member Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, came out on the 20th of March 2000. It gave Chisholm her first solo number 1. It also topped the charts in the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Scotland and Sweden. It was the eighteenth best-selling song of 2000 and sold more than a million copies across Europe.

  On the 7th of August 2000, Virgin released a remix of I Turn to You as the fourth single. It became her second number 1 in the UK, the Netherlands and Sweden, and also topped the charts in Austria and Denmark. It reached number 1 on the US Dance Club Songs chart too. The Hex Hector remix won the Grammy Award for Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical. If That Were Me, the fifth and final single, reached number 18. All proceeds from it went to the Kandu Arts charity.

  The Northern Star Tour ran from late 2000 to the 26th of August 2001. It covered 76 dates in 30 countries across four continents, skipping only Oceania and South America. Her Shepherd's Bush Empire concert was webcast on her original website, with a special appearance by Bryan Adams. In November 2001 she began recording a second album, travelling to the United States to work on some of the songs.

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• 5. Going Independent

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  Here It Comes Again, released on the 24th of February 2003, reached number 7 in the UK. Her second album, Reason, had been postponed to the 10th of March 2003, partly because she took time out to deal with clinical depression. It peaked at number 5 and went Gold in the UK. The Reason Tour began on the 24th of April 2003 and played only in Europe. On the Horizon, the second single, followed on the 2nd of June. Critics had predicted it would revive her chart fortunes, but it peaked at number 14 and did not lift sales.

  The 11th of September 2003 brought a setback during a taping of the reality sports show The Games. Chisholm competed in a judo match against the actress Azra Akin and injured her knee. A third single, Yeh Yeh Yeh, had to be delayed because she could not promote an upbeat song while hurt. The label paired it with Melt as a double A-side on the 10th of November, and it reached number 27.

  On the 1st of January 2004, Virgin Records dismissed her after years of conflict over the direction of her solo career. That April she founded her own label, Red Girl Records. She decides and funds all of her activities herself. The name comes from the colours of Liverpool F.C., the football club she supports. Nancy Phillips, her manager and business partner since the label began, retired in 2017.

  The Barfly Mini-Tour in June 2004 was a five-date run in venues dedicated to independent music. By October she had finished her third album, and she said she wanted deeper songs built around piano, violin and personal themes. Next Best Superstar, the lead single, was released on the 4th of April 2005 and peaked at number 10 in the UK. Beautiful Intentions followed a week later, on the 11th of April, as the first album on Red Girl. Chisholm wrote eleven of its twelve songs. It reached number 24 in the UK and the top 15 in other European countries. It was certified Gold in Germany and Switzerland.

  First Day of My Life was left off the original album but added to the 2006 re-release. Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli had been meant to record it first, with Italian lyrics titled Un Nuovo Giorno, for his 2004 album Andrea. Chisholm's version went to number 1 in Spain, Germany, Switzerland and Portugal, and to number 2 in Austria. It became the title song of the German telenovela Wege zum Glück. Her first live DVD, Live Hits, was recorded on the 31st of August 2006 at the Bridge in southeast London and peaked at number 10.

  This Time, her fourth album, came out on the 30th of March 2007. It reached number 8 in Switzerland, where it went Gold, and number 57 in the UK. Carolyna, its third single, grew from a documentary she watched about homeless young people living on the streets of Seattle. On Loose Women she explained that this was what inspired her to write it.

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• 6. Reunion Tours

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  A surprise press conference at The O2 Arena on the 28th of June 2007 announced that the Spice Girls were reuniting. A worldwide tour, The Return of the Spice Girls, would start in Vancouver on the 2nd of December. Each member was to receive £10 million, approximately $20 million. The filmmaker Bob Smeaton directed an official documentary on the reunion, titled Giving You Everything.

  Headlines (Friendship Never Ends) came out on the 5th of November as the official Children in Need charity single. The group performed it at the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, and Anthony Mandler directed the video, in which they wore clothes by Roberto Cavalli. It peaked at number 11, their first single to miss the top ten. A Greatest Hits compilation appeared that November with Move Over, the 1997 Pepsi theme, and a new song called Voodoo. It sold 6 million copies.

  The tour played 47 dates between the 2nd of December 2007 and the 26th of February 2008. It generated an estimated $107.2 million in ticket sales and merchandising, and it won the 2008 Billboard Touring Award. Tesco also contracted the group for advertisements, paying each member £1 million.

  Nine Canadian cities hosted Chisholm's This Time Canadian Tour in May 2008. Understand, released on the 25th of July, was the fifth and final single from the album, and it came out only in Canada.

  On the 5th of November 2018, the group announced another reunion, this time with Melanie B, Bunton and Halliwell alongside Chisholm. The Spice World 2019 Tour was their first in a decade, with 13 dates in eight cities across the UK and Ireland. It opened at Croke Park in Dublin on the 24th of May 2019 and ended at Wembley Stadium in London on the 15th of June. In 2021, a deluxe re-release called Spice25 would put the debut album back at number five on the UK Albums Chart.

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• 7. Stage and Screen

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  In February 2009, Chisholm gave birth to a daughter, and she later told the BBC that motherhood changed her outlook. She said: "Being a mum was so liberating because for the first time in my adult life, it wasn't all about me." That same year, a planned role in a sequel to the 1996 horror film The Craft fell through when the production was cancelled.

  In October 2009 she made her stage debut as Mrs Johnstone in Blood Brothers, a new version of the 1983 original production. She stayed until the end of 2010 and was nominated for the 2010 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical, though she did not win.

  The Sea, her fifth album, was released on the 2nd of September 2011 and peaked at number 45 in the UK. Chisholm said on her YouTube channel that she felt "very sad as The Sea was a really great album and it wasn't as successful as it deserved to be". Around then she served as mentor assistant on the third series of The X Factor Australia, helping the team led by Mel B.

  The ITV talent show Superstar saw her sit as a judge in 2012, searching for an actor to star in Jesus Christ Superstar. Ben Forster won the part. Chisholm co-starred as Mary Magdalene until 2013 and won Best Supporting Actress in a musical at the Whatsonstage.com Awards. The role inspired Stages, released on the 7th of September 2012, a collection of show tunes important to her at different points in her life. She also joined The Justice Collective, alongside Robbie Williams and Paul McCartney, for the charity single He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother. It went to number 1 in December 2012.

  The Zambezi River rapids tested Chisholm in 2013, when she joined Jack Dee, Dara Ó Briain and others in a Comic Relief challenge called Through Hell and High Water. The celebrities canoed the river and raised over £1 million. In 2012 she had joined Sport Relief by running the three-mile Sport Relief Mile, and she has completed the London Triathlon twice. In 2014 she travelled to Ghana for a Procter & Gamble campaign that provides African children with clean drinking water through purification sachets.

  Asia's Got Talent in 2015 put her on a judging panel with David Foster, Anggun Cipta and Vanness Wu. She lived in Malaysia during production, and the planned second series was later discontinued. In 2021 she competed on series 30 of Dancing with the Stars with her professional partner Gleb Savchenko. They were eliminated on the 18th of October, finishing in eleventh place. That November she judged The Voice Kids, where her mentee Torrin Cuthill won.

  RuPaul's Drag Race UK vs the World had her as a guest judge in February 2022. On the 15th of September 2022 came her memoir, Who I Am: My Story, retitled The Sporty One: My Life as a Spice Girl for the American edition on the 27th of September. She then toured the United States and visited literature festivals in the United Kingdom. In 2025 she travelled to Australia to coach on The Voice Australia, replacing LeAnn Rimes alongside Ronan Keating, Richard Marx and Kate Miller-Heidke. She has said she will return for a second season.

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• 8. Dance Floor Reinvention

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  Anymore, released on the 6th of September 2016, marked a turn toward a more electronic sound that critics praised. It topped the UK Physical Singles Chart. Her seventh album, Version of Me, followed on the 21st of October 2016 and debuted at number 25 in the UK. That made it her highest-charting album since Beautiful Intentions. From 2016 onward her music leaned into electronic, dance, trance and house sounds.

  Mexico City hosted her on the 27th of May 2017 at the Classics Fest concert series, alongside Vanilla Ice and Jenny Berggren of Ace of Base. It was her first performance as a solo artist in Latin America. She said: "I haven't been back to Mexico in many years and when I was there it was very brief, so I am excited to return and sing." In June she played Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, her first time performing in Brazil.

  Fans were invited to send in videos of themselves singing along to Room for Love, the album's fourth single, released on the 20th of October 2017. The final video included fan clips and appearances from Emma Bunton, Geri Halliwell, Victoria Beckham, KT Tunstall and Natalie Imbruglia. In 2018 she began performing DJ sets built around a "90s mix".

  High Heels, released on the 6th of November 2019, featured the drag act Sink the Pink. Her self-titled eighth album, Melanie C, arrived on the 2nd of October 2020 and entered the UK chart at number 8. It was her first top ten album since Reason in 2003. During the COVID-19 pandemic she performed Who I Am from home on The Late Late Show with James Corden on the 21st of April 2020. On the 13th of May she sang from a bathroom for a WaterAid fundraiser. Fearless, a collaboration with the rapper Nadia Rose, was the album's fourth single. In August 2021 she received the Celebrity Ally award at the British LGBT Awards.

  Australia hosted two DJ tours, in November 2023 and in April and May 2024. In May 2024 she played three nights at the Pacha club in Ibiza. In January 2025 she released a gym and fitness mix on Apple Music. She told Apple Music 1: "I'm a pop artist, but I love my dance music." She said she wanted to bring her DJ work and her solo work closer together. Collaborators on the new record included Rose Gray, Uffie, Richard Stannard and Billen Ted.

  Sweat, the lead single, was released on the 17th of October 2025. It reached number 10 on the UK Singles Downloads Chart and number 22 on Australia's ARIA digital chart. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?, co-written with Klas Ahlund and Nea, followed on the 29th of January 2026. Chisholm called it a tongue-in-cheek look at taking risks and trusting yourself to take the leap anyway. Undefeated Champion came out on the 13th of March, and Attitude on the 10th of April.

  The ninth album, Sweat, was released on the 1st of May 2026 in partnership with Virgin Music Group. It debuted at number 3 on the UK Albums Chart, her highest-charting solo album and the highest by any Spice Girl, passing the number 4 peak of Northern Star. She was later named recipient of the Global Impact Award at the 2026 O2 Silver Clef Awards, with the ceremony set for the 9th of July. Her world tour was announced to begin in Montreal on the 8th of September 2026 and end in Sydney on the 15th of November. A release concert at London's O2 Academy Brixton is scheduled for the 23rd of October 2026.

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