Mel C opens up on depression and urges others to seek help

Mel C has opened up on her struggles with depression, urging others not to be ashamed to seek help with their mental health problems.

The Spice Girls star said that she had tried to keep her own depression to herself in the past, but realised it had not been the right way of dealing with it.

Although she is happy to discuss her history with depression and an eating disorder now, she told Graham Norton on his Virgin Radio show that she hadn’t always been so open.

Mel said: "I kept those secret and I think people are quite aware of it around you, but they don't know how to approach you.

"I think I would have just said 'people love you and care about you, please reach out to them' - so often you need that external help, you have to be ready, but you do need help and personally for me I needed professional help."

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The singer said that she recognised a lot of people felt embarrassed or ashamed about struggling with their mental health, but urged them not to see it as a weakness and to seek help.

She said: “It's so important to reach out and never, ever be embarrassed. We all have problems and concerns. People need people.”

Mel has previously spoken about her issues with imposter syndrome when she was at the height of her fame as Sporty Spice.

She told The Mirror: “I felt guilty and I think I felt maybe I didn’t deserve it and I think all of these things made me put an extraordinary amount of pressure on myself to fit and be what in my head was the idea of perfect, so I did deserve all of the things that were happening to me."

It was around the millennium when she decided to get some help from her doctor and was diagnosed with depression.

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