As a Spice Girl, TV talent show judge and Broadway star, Mel B a.k.a Scary Spice, has been a global icon since her twenties. But behind the glittering façade of fame, the struggles and pain of this working-class, mixed-race girl from Leeds are laid bare in her critically acclaimed best-selling memoir, Brutally Honest. With deep personal insight, remarkable frankness and trademark Yorkshire humour, the book tells how she went from Girl Power to girl powerless during her ten-year emotionally abusive marriage. Tracing a path through the key moments in her life, she reflects on her childhood, rise to fame and her chilling downward spiral before she finally broke free. In this brand new, updated and expanded edition written with Louise Gannon, Mel brings her story up to date. With her trademark honesty, she tells the unfiltered story of piecing herself back together, dealing with trauma and new heartbreak whilst becoming a champion for survivors of abuse, performing once more with the Spice Girls and receiving her MBE from Prince William.

 

Melanie Brown’s career began with the pop phenomenon, Spice Girls. They became the biggest girl band in music history, selling more than 85 million records worldwide and becoming cultural icons around the globe. Their tours grossed $800 million dollars and their recent Spice World reunion was the fastest selling tour of 2019.

Since 2000, Melanie has become one of the most recognised faces on television, fronting shows from Lip Sync UK, The X Factor in Britain and Australia, Dancing with the Stars in Australia and America’s Got Talent. She has also starred in a string of movies most recently Idris Elba’s A New Diva Christmas Carol. She has appeared on Broadway in Rent and as Roxie Hart in Chicago. A judge on Australia’s Masked Singer, she remains one of the most popular stars in Britain and America and since the release of Brutally Honest in 2018 has been Patron of Woman’s Aid, speaking at Westminster, 10 Downing Street and at party conferences on behalf of survivors. In Queen Elizabeth's final honours in 2022, she was awarded an MBE for services to vulnerable women. She lives with her family in Leeds.

Award-winning journalist and author Louise Gannon worked in Fleet Street for 25 years and has interviewed every major celebrity from Madonna to Mick Jagger to Britney Spears. She first met Melanie as a wannabe pop star in 1995. She lives in London.