Mel B: 'My journey from Harehills to Hollywood Hills and back to Yorkshire countryside'

The former Spice Girl Mel B has, in her words, come “full circle,” growing up in Leeds, travelling the world before relocating to America and eventually moving home again.

Now in her first interview since becoming Vice President of the Yorkshire Society last month - taking on a role which the much-missed late BBC Look North presenter Harry Gration once held - Ms Brown explains why she came home six years ago.

Now living with her three children and a host of animals, she says she feels very thankful.

At the height of her career in the best-selling girl band of all time, Ms Brown may have looked like she was living the happy ending in a rags-to-riches fairytale, but after the band split her life had taken a very different turn.

Despite her successful solo career and having three children whose fathers are dancer Jimmy Gulzar, actor Eddie Murphy, and film producer Stephen Belafonte, she returned to Leeds with very little six years ago.

Her return, she says, was prompted after her middle son Angel Murphy Brown turned to her and said: “Mommy, why are we living in America when all your family's here?”

She said it’s one of the best decisions she’s ever made.

She is now back in Yorkshire after a busy schedule appearing on the new Netflix series Celebrity Bear Hunt with Bear Grylls.

“I have three goats, nine chickens now and I've got my two protection dogs and I have a forest.

“So I come home and breathe the fresh Yorkshire air, go to tend to my animals and chill at my house and feel very thankful and appreciative of it,” she says.

Ms Brown and her ex-husband Belafonte, the father of her youngest daughter Madison, separated in December 2016. She filed for divorce in March 2017 and accused Belafonte of emotional abuse.

Belafonte - who has a criminal conviction for domestic violence from a previous relationship - has repeatedly denied her claims.

Ms Brown says: “I went through a very abusive ten-year marriage in America and I was cut off from my family because that's what happens when you're in an abusive relationship. 


“The abuser isolates you from all your friends and your close family.”

Ms Brown, whose mother worked as a shop assistant in C&A and her father was a welder, says prior to her marriage to Belafonte she would speak to her mum Andrea two to three times a day.

In 2018 she penned an autobiography - ‘Brutally Honest’ - talking about her journey. That same year she became patron of Women’s Aid - a charity mainly for women and children experiencing domestic violence.

She says: “Being made patron of that gave me the strength and ability to not only admit what I had gone through.”

When she moved back to Leeds, Ms Brown lived with her mother in her bungalow while she saved up for five years, and had intense therapy at Leeds Women’s Aid.

“[I was] embraced by Yorkshire and Leeds and England in general, but mainly Yorkshire," she says.

“They had a lot of love for me coming back and I was very distraught and traumatised and very unconfident.

“This is the safest, best place that I could be. Leeds Refuge was amazing.”

Ms Brown has since used her platform to empower other survivors and raise awareness of domestic violence.

In May 2022, she was made an MBE for services to charitable causes, with Women’s Aid being one of those charities very close to her heart.

Of her therapy at Leeds Refuge, she says they helped her work through what had happened to her.

She still keeps in touch and even attended the Leeds Women’s Aid Christmas party last year.

“They're my people,” she says. “My story is the same as their story so I feel like we've got a connection there, even though it's through trauma, but we're all very supportive of each other.”

Last year Ms Brown received an honorary doctorate from Leeds Beckett University for services to the city of Leeds particularly her work as an anti domestic abuse campaigner.

And as she said it was important for her to feel part of the student community, she then applied to study a Trauma Informed Care course.

“Obviously I had to apply and you have to go through all different loopholes of assessment,” she says of the application process.

“I am dyslexic and I've got a bit of ADD, but they have the structure at Leeds Beckett where you can get help, they get to understand you academically and how you can actually retain the information.”

With the support of her family, friends and university she passed the course late last year.

She has also recently purchased her own property near Menwith Hill. When she was in America she said that she missed the English countryside “more than anything.”

She says: “I saved my money since Covid, living with my mum and I managed to buy this little farm.”

While her childhood and her life now are equally as embedded in Yorkshire, there’s no comparison between the two.

“I used to play out all night on the street, which you can't really do that these days and we all used to get called in for your tea. I've got very fond memories, but we were very much working class,” she says.

After studying performing arts in Rodley, Leeds, she would regularly travel to London for auditions in her late teens, and her mother insisted she get a job as her dance career wasn’t going “all too well.”

She secured a job in auto sales at the former The Yorkshire Post building where she lasted about three weeks “cold calling” people.

“I kind of liked it because I had to wear a formal jacket and skirt. I felt like I was off to the office to do a job, but it was really hard work,” she says.

“Then I worked at Pizza Hut and then I worked at a market selling jeans on a Saturday.”

Ms Brown lives with her fiance Rory McPhee, 37, a hairdresser and keen cook, who makes Sunday lunches every week.

The couple are due to marry this summer.

She is also proud of her Leeds accent, despite concerns that she might need subtitles while she was a judge on America’s Got Talent.

“I think people in Yorkshire just get to the meat and potatoes and stuff. There's no fluff. There's no messing around.They say it how it is,” she says.

“But you don't want to cross a Yorkshire person, you can't be full of lies and full of fakeness. They’re my people.

“It's just how I've been brought up and I've been brought up very straight to the point and very Yorkshire.”