Mel B received racist hate mail after moving to village at height of Spice Girls fame
Mel B received racist hate mail after moving into a property in Little Marlow, Buckinghamshire at the height of her Spice Girls fame.
'Scary Spice', who was born Melanie Brown, has said that she was hit with a deluge of abuse after purchasing the home in 1998 - with some of the messages containing racial hatred.
“The fact I bought it disturbed the whole village. I got not just hate mail but racist hate mail, which was shocking to me," she told The Sun, with the publication reporting she received "more than a dozen" letters.
Read more: Sugababe Keisha Buchanan on ‘trauma’ of being group’s only black member
Brown, 45, continued: “It said, ‘Get out of this village, you don’t belong, you can’t buy something like this . . .’
“It disturbed me but I still threw some great parties there – really loud to disturb the village.”
Back in 2000, Bucks Free Press said that locals “didn’t know of any race problems in the area”, after news of hateful letters was reported. Police confirmed to the publication that the incidents did take place.
It comes as Black Lives Matter protests continue to take place globally, with the mother-of-three also recently opening up about racism she has faced throughout her life.
Brown said that while at school she was chased by white peers who yelled slurs at her as she made her way home.
The singer also said other instances of discrimination she experienced including being urged to straighten her naturally curly hair and being asked to leave a designer shop while shopping with her fellow Spice Girls.
Speaking to the Daily Star, she said: "Of course, all the girls had a go at the assistant because they were so shocked. It's pretty awful to think I wasn't actually shocked because if you are brown then there's always a part of you that expects some confrontation."