Spice Girls singer Melanie “Mel C” Chisholm responded to rumors about her sexuality after she was assumed to be a lesbian over the years due to her tomboy aesthetic.
“You’ve got all the different ones and the one who’s in the active wear … it was assumed or suggested that I was gay,” the “Wannabe” songstress, also known as Sporty Spice, said on a recent episode of “The Mitch Churi Chat Show.”
“I don’t personally have a problem with that,” she continued. “I mean, it’s none of their friggin’ business. But I just thought … to base it on somebody’s look or the way that they dress, yeah, it was a bit s–t of them.”
Chisholm, 52, shared that the rumors led to the ’90s girl group gaining “an incredible following in the LGBTQ+ community.”
“This is bigger than us,” she stated.
The hitmaker formed the Spice Girls alongside Victoria Beckham (Posh Spice), Emma Bunton (Baby Spice), Melanie “Mel B” Brown (Scary Spice) and Geri Halliwell-Horner (Ginger Spice) in 1994.
Chisholm’s athletic and loose-fitting attire — compared to her bandmates’ glam looks — were among the reasons fans made assumptions about her sexuality, which she found to be “very rude.”
“People said I looked like a lesbian because I had short hair,” she told the UK-based publication “Attitude” in 2022.
“But how can you look like a lesbian? I find it very rude and extremely offensive to gay people… It’s a stereotypical thing,” the “Viva Forever” singer continued.
Chisholm, however, proudly embraced the rumors, sharing that she’s been able to perform at many Pride events over the years.
The “Spice Up Your Life” singer is currently in a relationship with Chris Dingwall.
“Nobody knows this, but we actually met on Raya,” she shared on the “Life Uncut Podcast” last year.
“I don’t know how much to divulge, but I was in a relationship previously,” Chisholm said, alluding to her romance with producer Joe Marshall from 2015 to 2022.
“But then you get to this point, and it’s usually on a drunken night out with female friends, and it’s like, ‘You gotta get back out there. You gotta start dating,’ so that’s when the Raya thingy, the profile, was set up,” she said.
Chishom is also the mother to 17-year-old daughter, Scarlett Star. She shares the teenager with her former long-term partner, Thomas Starr, whom she dated from 2002 to 2012.
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