Is Scary Spice Mel B a Christian?

What do you remember of Scary Spice? Larger than life? Bold and brazen? Now aged 48, and having gone through an abusive marriage and broken relationships, it seems like Mel B isn’t so scary any more. 

Last week Melanie Brown re-released her 2018 autobiography - Brutally Honest to include additional chapters.

She was recently interviewed by author Elizabeth Day for her podcast How to Fail, and said about the re-release: “…the reason why I’ve re-released it [the book] with three new chapters, [is] because in between 2018 and 2024, a lot has happened.”

Speaking to Day about her ten-year marriage to film producer, Stephen Belafonte, she chronicles the abuse she endured.

Speaking to Day about her ten-year marriage to film producer, Stephen Belafonte, she chronicles the abuse she endured. Her painful relationship is one of the reasons that in November 2018, she became a patron of the domestic violence survivors’ charity Women’s Aid.

Mel and Stephen had a child together, and she spoke of fighting a court system in America for the custody of their daughter, Madison Brown Belafonte, born in 2011.

When asked about how she coped having to let her daughter spend time with her father, who was abusive to her, she said to Day: ”I just have to pray a lot, and I have to think that as long as my daughter is with me she understands unconditional love. She understands right and wrong. We say a prayer before dinner, and she has manners and she has respect, and she knows what a healthy relationship looks like, because she sees me and Rory.”

In the 2018 version of her autobiography, Mel spoke about talking to God. She wrote about taking cocaine up to six times a day to help her cope as a judge on The X Factor: “Then I would pray, ‘God, I’m sorry for taking cocaine but, please God, help me get through this day’.

“I just have to pray a lot, and I have to think that as long as my daughter is with me she understands unconditional love.”

“It numbed my pain. It lifted me up enough to be ready to fire on all cylinders and forget about everything but the show.

“I told myself God would understand and forgive me because he could see through all the glitter and the cr*p.

“He could see me. The mess. And the cocaine could help that mess. Just for now.”

So Mel B believes in God, and she prays. She has been very open about her drug and alcohol consumption over the years, and perhaps, now that she is in a more stable place (engaged to long-time friend Rory McPhee), she has enrolled in a AA or NA class. If so, step two and three of the twelve steps are: ‘Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity’, and ‘Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.’

Steps five and six are: ‘Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.’ and ‘Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.’

And step eleven is: ‘Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out.’

Step eight speaks about making amends with those people we have hurt, asking for forgiveness.

We don’t know if Mel B has gone through these steps, or who she understands God to be, so let’s pray for her, that wherever she is on her journey, she would come to know the one she is praying to, and know his great love for her.

Brutally Honest (2018) by Melanie Brown was published by Quadrille Publishing Ltd.