Spice Girls star says she was almost kicked out of group after Victoria Beckham moment

It comes as the famous girl group mark 30 years since the release of the iconic debut single Wannabe this month

Mel C has told how she risked losing her place in the Spice Girls after a moment with Victoria Beckham, despite thinking she had done “nothing wrong”.

Singer ‘Sporty Spice’ – real name Melanie Jayne Chisholm – and her bandmates Victoria, Geri Halliwell, Melanie ‘Mel B’ Brown and Emma Bunton mark 30 years since the release of the iconic debut single Wannabe this month (July), which remains a pop culture classic to this day.

Released on July 8 1996, the legendary track spent seven consecutive weeks at the top of the UK charts and four weeks at number one in the US, paving the way for a string of unforgettable hits, including Who Do You Think You Are, Stop, and Viva Forever.

But now, Mel has recalled a major moment back in 1996 when she became embroiled in a bust-up with Victoria at the BRIT Awards and thought she was going to “lose everything” when the group’s manager, Simon Fuller, threatened to have her removed from the girl group.

Speaking on the latest episode of The Louis Theroux Podcast, Mel explained: “I went into terror because I thought I was going to lose everything. You know, those dreams as a child, which now were a possibility, I might have f***** it all up.

“And I thought it was very trivial as well because, to put some more meat on the bones of that evening, it was the BRIT Awards in 1996, which fall around February time. So, we hadn’t released anything. Nobody in the public knew us.

“But in the industry, people had started talking, and we were there, signed to Virgin Records, and we were sitting on a table with Lenny Kravitz, obviously, we were these young girls so this was an amazing night for us. We had a great night.

“We had a few Champagnes … We were going to find our car and whatever the, the situation was where I just turned around and said to Victoria: ‘Oh, f*** off’.”

She continued to explain: “Unbeknownst to me, go home, go to bed, wake up the next morning, and I was in a lot of trouble. I was living with Mel B at the time. We were living in Watford, and Geri [Horner] also lived in Watford, and they were both there when I got up. And yeah, they were just disgusted with my behaviour.

“You know when you’ve had a night out, and you wake up in the morning, and you’ve got beer fear, right?. You think: ‘Oh, f***, I know what I did last night’. I didn’t even have that. I just woke up going: ‘Oh, last, last night was fun’, where I had completely brushed off that situation. But obviously, it had really affected people in a way I hadn’t realised. So I was in trouble.”

Mel C ended up in a meeting, where she was told she would lose her place in the band if she every acted out like that again. She explained: “Simon wanted to speak to me, and I was told in no uncertain terms if anything ever happened like that again, I would be gone.

“So that completely freaked me out, one, because I didn’t realise I’d done anything that terribly bad, and two, because my actions may have led to me losing everything I’d ever wanted, you know?”