Mel C says the Spice Girls weren’t subjected to sexual harassment in the music industry, because men were terrified of them.
But sexist attitudes they faced from record labels lit a “fire in their bellies” to promote Girl Power.
“I get asked quite a lot about the #MeToo movement within the music industry and if I ever experienced anything,” says Mel. “And I’m like are you kidding me? No one would come near the Spice Girls because they were petrified of us.
“You knew if you messed with one of them you’d have to deal with the other four... so we always had back up.”
One was even called Scary...
However, when they first formed the band in the 1990s, label bosses were initially reluctant to back them, in favour of male groups.
“We started talking about Girl Power because we experienced sexism in the industry,” continues Mel.
“We were just five girls, we wanted to be famous, we wanted to be pop stars. Quite quickly we were being told: ‘Girl bands don’t sell records, you can’t be on the front cover of magazines because girls buy records by boys.’
“We were like: ‘Seriously, don’t say that to the Spice Girls - that’s a red rag to a bull,’” she tells the Table Manners podcast.
“That’s when we started talking about Girl Power and we knew we actually had a really important point to prove.
“It was great because it gave us a fire in our belly.”
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