Mel B was asked to ‘get out’ of a store by a racist shop assistant during her Spice Girls career

Mel B has discussed the horrifying racist abuse she endured during her career in the Spice Girls.

The 45-year-old Spice Girls star, who was born to a white British mother and a black father from the Caribbean island of Nevis, has opened up about her experiences with racism amid global protests in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

She told OK! Magazine in an open letter: ‘Even when I was a world famous Spice Girl playing a concert for Prince Charles and Nelson Mandela in South Africa, I was asked by a shop assistant in a designer store to get out.

Adding that she was left humiliated – but not surprised – by the 1997 incident, she said: ‘The other girls were outraged and started screaming at the assistant. I wasn’t shocked, I was embarrassed. 

‘I was angry and I was really sad that a lot of people in post Mandela South Africa were still racist.’

Mel also spoke about racist abuse she endured while growing up in her native Leeds.

She said when she was a baby, her mother Andrea would make her father Martin pick her up when they encountered certain people in the park, because she thought ‘he wouldn’t be attacked’ if he was holding a baby.

The star said her sister Danielle, her father and herself wouldn’t go into town on match days for Leeds United because it ‘wasn’t safe if you looked like us.’ 

The singer was also called vile racist slurs when she was growing up.

She told the Daily Star: “It was really when I went to school that I understood the colour of my skin had such an effect on the other kids. All of a sudden I was called all these names I didn’t understand like ‘P**i’, ‘Redskin’ and obviously the N-word.’   

And Mel has revealed that her experience with being made to feel like the odd one out continued into adulthood when, after joining the Spice Girls in the mid-’90s, one of her more distinctive features became a topic of debate.

She recalled: “I remember when we first did the video for Wannabe we had a big styling team and one of the first things they said to me was: “OK, so we need to straighten your hair.”

‘I refused point-blank because my hair was my identity and yes it was different to all the other girls but that was what the Spice Girls were about – celebrating our differences.’   

Bandmates Geri Horner, Victoria Beckham, Mel C, and Emma Bunton stood up for her, she said. 

The mother-of-three shared her experiences after seeing the reaction to George Floyd’s killing in police custody, which has sparked protests since late last month.

Ex-police officer Derek Chauvin has been charged with second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter after a video surfaced of him crushing 46-year-old Floyd’s neck with his knee in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Thomas Lane, J.A. Kueng and Tou Thao, the three other officers also present, were charged on Wednesday with aiding and abetting the murder of Floyd. They have also been charged with second degree aiding and abetting manslaughter. 

TV personality Mel said she felt ‘incredibly proud’ to see the global demonstrations in reaction to Floyd’s shocking death.