DO NOT think for a minute that Scary Spice, also known as Melanie Brown (or Mel B for short), has mellowed simply because she has settled down and started a family.
In fact, the British singer- host and former Spice Girl insisted that she is as raucous and brash as ever, in an interview earlier this week.
On the line with the Singapore media from Hong Kong, where she was promoting her latest project, Brown, 35, said: “I’m still loud and I’m still crazy. My kids get embarrassed sometimes (by my dressing and my personality).”
She added with a hearty laugh: “Sometimes, my 11- year-old will go, ‘Oh my god, do not pick me up from school wearing that!”
Her unconventional family life has been thrust into the spotlight in her first foray into reality television. Mel B: It’s A Scary World will premiere here on Monday.
Indeed, Brown’s personal life has not been particularly smooth. Her first marriage to Dutch dancer Jimmy Gulzar – which took place while she was still in the Spice Girls – ended in a
huge custody battle for daughter Phoenix Chi, now 11, after just two years.
But it was her short-lived 2006 relationship with American actor Eddie Murphy that hogged the most headlines. Back then, Murphy, now 49, had denied being the father of Brown’s unborn child.
She said otherwise, and a very public battle about the identity of the baby’s father ensued. A paternity test the following year proved that the Beverly Hills Cop actor was indeed the father of Angel Iris, now aged three.
Still, Brown – who is now married to film producer Stephen Belafonte, who has a six-year-old daughter, Giselle, from a previous relationship – seems to have moved past all that.
Asked if the issue with Murphy has been resolved, she sounded remarkably mature and self-assured. “The issue with Eddie has been resolved. That’s why I addressed it in the first episode (of the show),” she explained in her thick Leeds drawl.
“I know people will want to know about that. Everything’s fine in that department. It kind of figured itself out.”
As for her relationship with Belafonte, 35 – which has also recently come under speculation – Brown insisted that there is no trouble in paradise.
“I married my best friend, so I’m all good to go in that department,” she said, adding that there are plans for a new addition to the family next year.
Apart from her television show, the former Spice Girl has certainly been busy. She was tight-lipped about recent rumours concerning her involvement with the United States version of talent show The X Factor (“If I told you, I would have to kill you,” she mock-threatened this my paper reporter), but said that she is working on her third studio album. It is slated for release next year.
She just finished recording her new single, Lip Lock, with United States rapper Ludacris. And fans of the Spice Girls will be glad to know that a musical about the group is also in the works.
She enthused: “We’re texting and e-mailing one another. “It’s one of those long creative projects, but it’s getting there. We’re very excited about putting on a Spice Girls musical.”
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