Spice Girls’ Melanie C Details Overcoming Eating Disorder

Content warning: This story discusses eating disorders.

Melanie Chisholm is reflecting on a difficult time in her life.

Sporty Spice detailed her struggle with an eating disorder towards the end of the Spice Girls‘ initial run as a group.

“I was exercising more, eating less, getting smaller and smaller,” Melanie told The Times of London in an interview published Jan. 24. “It was a very physical thing, very noticeable.”

The “I Turn to You” singer noted that, while her bandmates—Melanie Brown, Victoria Beckham, Emma Bunton and Geri Halliwell—tried to help her after they noticed something going on, she dismissed their efforts.

“When you’re with each other for so much time and your eating habits change, they’re aware,” she explained. “They did try to speak to me, but I wasn’t ready to hear it.”

“I’d come home, and it was just me,” she continued. “I was with my family in L.A., and I couldn’t get out of bed. I was crying and crying. I’d started having a binge-eating disorder, but I didn’t understand it.”