Mel B is getting candid about her romantic past, specifically her relationship with ex-girlfriend Christine Crokos.
“I happened to fall in love with a woman and was with her for five years,” Mel B (real name Melanie Brown), 48, revealed in an interview with Attitude magazine published on Monday, April 22. “We still talk to this day.”
Though the Spice Girls singer did not mention Crokos, 48, by name in the article, Mel B and the film director reportedly began dating not long after Mel B’s 2000 divorce from her first husband, Jimmy Gulzar, in 2000. Mel B and Crokos split in 2006.
That same year, Mel B began dating actor Eddie Murphy, with whom she shares her youngest daughter, Angel, 17. Mel B went on to wed her ex-husband Stephen Belafonte in 2007 before calling it quits 10 years later. (She also shares her daughter Phoenix, 25, with Gulzar.)
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In her interview with Attitude, Mel B also opened up about being a member of the LGBTQ+ community. “I didn’t start off my sexual journey going, ‘I’m this, I’m that, I’m bisexual,’” she explained. “I was, and always will be, very open.”
Noting that her sexuality isn’t something she wants to “put a label” on,” she added, “But I’ve always thought women are beautiful.”
Mel B has since found new love with her fiancé, Rory McPhee, who popped the question after three years of dating in October 2022. “I’ve been given a few dates, but none we’ve said yes to yet,” she told Attitude. “Only 30 couples a year get married [at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London], so it’s quite a thing.”
Earlier this year, Mel B exclusively told Us Weekly that her fellow Spice Girls members — Victoria Beckham, Emma Bunton, Melanie C and Geri Halliwell — will all be invited to the wedding. “Of course. They’re my friends,” she shared in January.
She also gushed about her romance with McPhee, 36, telling Us, “I didn’t believe in love and trust because I’d had 10 years of such bad abuse that when I came out of that, I was like, ‘I don’t want a relationship.’ I was so broken down in my self-esteem, my confidence [and] I really had to build myself up.” (Mel B has previously accused Belafonte, 48, of being physically and emotionally abusive during their marriage, which he has denied.)
“To think of sharing myself again with anybody else was too scary for me, but Rory is a family friend, so I already have that trust and that foundation laid,” Mel B continued. “It just felt safe, right and real, even though many times I went, ‘No, I don’t want a relationship, I can’t handle it.’”
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She went on to call McPhee the “best thing that’s happened to me,” telling Us that the hairdresser made her “believe in love again and trust again.”
McPhee accompanied Mel B to Beckham’s 50th birthday party in London on Saturday, April 20. Sporting a red dress with a cut-out bodice, Mel B reunited with all of the Spice Girls for an impromptu performance of the group’s hit song “Stop.”
“I mean come on,” Victoria’s husband, David Beckham, captioned footage of the surprise song via Instagram on Saturday, April 20.
