Melanie "Mel B" Brown is continuing to share her story to help other women break free from abusive relationships.
On the Thursday, March 7, episode of the British talk show Loose Women, the Spice Girls alum stopped by to chat about the Facing It Together campaign, which brings awareness to domestic abuse.
The mother-of-three, 48, was married to Stephen Belafonte, also 48, from 2007 to 2017, and the star claimed she suffered physical and emotional abuse from the movie producer throughout their relationship.
"Even though I was in my marriage for 10 years, I tried to leave six or seven times," she revealed. "I went back due to fear or blackmail."
Brown explained that another reason she kept coming back was that she had no one else to turn to, as she became "isolated" from her family and her "finances."
"You think, 'What am I going to do if I leave? I haven't spoken to my mum in weeks.' Then it's months, then years," she spilled. "It happens so gradually."
"I'm seven years out and I still have PTSD and panic attacks because I don't trust myself," Brown admitted. "How could I when I thought that person loved me? I'm all about girl power, but I was powerless. I had no confidence."
Eventually, the British beauty detailed her hardships in the 2018 memoir Brutally Honest. However, she admitted it took some time to get the "cathartic" work published, as domestic abuse was "a taboo topic in 2018."
Brown noted that the back cover of her book features 15 signs of "what abuse can look like," something she included "because I don't think people realize when you're in that abusive situation, how abused you've actually been, because they do it very subtly."
The "Wannabe" crooner put herself back together with the help of loved ones and untraditional therapies.
"Talking about it, it actually didn't work for me, because it was like reliving the abuse all over again," she recalled. "So I did different alternative therapies."
"This sounds quite barbaric, but I explained it in my book. I had a lot of head tapping things," she spilled of having gadgets target her brain's front lobes to "ease her trauma a little bit."
"But it's the trauma ... I'm going to have to live with for the rest of my life," she said.
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In another interview, Brown revealed she also joined the competition show Special Forces to help work through her issues, as the show made her find "inner strength" and made her feel "so empowered."
In October 2022, the pop culture icon became engaged to hairdresser Rory McPhee.
