English singer, songwriter, actress, author, television personality, as a member of the Spice Girls, she was known as “Scary Spice”, successful as a solo artist.
Since 2000, Brown has concentrated on a variety of non-singing projects. She became the presenter of shows such as This Is My Moment, Top of the Pops, Party in the Park and The All Star Animal Awards. In September 2007, she became a contestant on the fifth season of the American dance competition, Dancing with the Stars; in which she placed runner-up overall partnered with Maksim Chmerkovskiy. Brown returned to television work becoming a judge for the Australian version of The X Factor from 2011 to 2012, replacing Kyle Sandilands and having previously been a celebrity mentor on the show in 2010. In June 2012, she was a guest judge during the Manchester auditions for the ninth series of The X Factor UK, as one of the temporary replacements for Kelly Rowland; before the role eventually went to Nicole Scherzinger.
While on the Spiceworld Tour, Brown began a relationship with Dutch dancer Jimmy Gulzar. After she became pregnant, they married in Little Marlow, Buckinghamshire, on 13 September 1998, and she changed her stage name to Melanie G. Their daughter, Phoenix Chi Gulzar, was born in Westminster, London on 19 February 1999. In 2000 Brown filed for divorce, which was finalised later that year. In 2000, she began a relationship with actor Max Beesley, dating for two years. From 2002 to 2006, Brown was in a lesbian relationship with the film producer Christine Crokos. She moved to Los Angeles with Crokos. Asked about the relationship, Brown said: “People call me lesbian, bisexual or heterosexual, but I know who’s in my bed and that’s it. I have a huge libido and a great sex life”. In 2005, during break, Brown dated another woman, Christa Parker, for a few months.
In 2006 Brown became the subject of tabloid stories because of her relationship with Hollywood actor Eddie Murphy, who would eventually acknowledge he was the father of Brown’s then unborn second child, Angel. By early December 2006, Brown and Murphy were no longer a couple and Murphy told a journalist that the parentage of Brown’s unborn baby could not be proven until a paternity test was performed. By 22 June 2007, a court-ordered DNA test confirmed that Murphy was the child’s father. Murphy admitted paternity and indicated that he would reimburse Brown for the cost of the pregnancy and agreed to pay her over $7 million. In February 2007 Brown began dating film producer Stephen Belafonte, they secretly married on 6 June 2007 in Las Vegas, Nevada, and renewed their vows with a lavish ceremony in front of their families on 8 November 2008 in Hurghada, Egypt. On 1 September 2011, Brown gave birth to her third child, daughter Madison Belafonte.
On 8 December 2014, it was revealed Brown had been blinded in one eye after a botched laser eye surgery 15 years prior. In March 2017 Brown filed for divorce from Stephen Belafonte. They separated in December 2016. Brown accused Belafonte of “emotional and physical abuse”. In court, Belafonte’s representative said that due to the couple’s “extravagant and affluent” lifestyle, Brown had “wiped out all her Spice Girls money – approximately $50 million (£38.3 million), if not more”. The divorce was finalised on 15 December 2017. She cited her divorce from Belafonte and her father’s death as her reasons for seeking treatment for PTSD. In December 2018, Brown fell down some stairs, breaking several ribs and suffering a serious cut to her hand, for which she underwent emergency surgery.
Link to Wikipedia biography