Melanie C has said she was sexually assaulted in a hotel the night before her first live show with the Spice Girls back in 1997.
The 48 year old, whose full name is Melanie Jayne Chisholm, shared how the ordeal impacted her to such a degree that she tried to bury the memory and it re-emerged years later in the form of a dream.
Speaking to host Elizabeth Day on the How To Fail podcast to promote her new memoir Who I Am: My story, Melanie explained that she didn't tell anyone about the incident as she didn't want to "make a fuss".
"It happened to me on the night before the first ever Spice Girls live performance," she explained.
The singer went on: "We were in Istanbul, we did two shows over there, and we'd never done a full-length concert before, so obviously we'd rehearsed for weeks ahead, costume fittings, make-up here, everything was leading towards the pinnacle of everything I'd ever wanted to do and ever wanted to be."
The star, who recently spoke out about a secret health battle at the height of her fame with the Spice Girls, continued: "What drives me is being on stage, being a performer, so here we were the eve of the first ever Spice Girls show, so I treat myself to a massage in the hotel.
"And what happened to me I kind of buried immediately because there was other things to focus on.
"I didn't want to make a fuss, but also I didn't have time to deal with it."
Melanie explained that she initially didn't intend to mention the assault in her memoir, but felt she needed to process it after it came back to her in a dream.
She said: "And then when I was writing the book it came to me in a dream, or I kind of woke up and it was in my mind and it was like 'Oh my gosh, I haven't even thought about having that in the book'."
“I felt violated, I felt very vulnerable, I felt embarrassed and then I felt unsure,” she went on to tell host Day.
Melanie, who recently reportedly split from her boyfriend seven years, added: “I do want to talk about it because it has affected me. But I buried it.”
If you have been affected by this story, you can call Rape Crisis on 0808 802 9999 or visit https://rapecrisis.org.uk/.
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