Mel C has revealed that she was nearly kicked out of the Spice Girls after telling her bandmate Victoria Beckham to 'f**k off' at the 1996 Brit Awards12:24, 07 Jul 2026Updated 12:24, 07 Jul 2026Melanie Chisholm, aka Mel C, has revealed that she very nearly lost her space in the Spice Girls after a tiff with Victoria Beckham led to a nasty exchange of words.‌Appearing on The Louis Theroux Podcast, Mel opened up about her early days in the band, which also included Emma Bunton, Mel B, and Geri Halliwell. She was asked by Louis about the band 'policing' one another, and asked about a specific moment where she changed her hairstyle at the 1996 Brit Awards before their big break.‌"Early on, you had an incident which you talk about at the '96 Brit Awards. Because you were just now talking about policing each other, and there was a moment where you were policed by the band mates. They felt, and it sounds so trivial, you'd taken your hair out, so you no longer had a ponytail, and this was before you even had released any music, but you were at the Brits, so you were under scrutiny.‌"And your fellow band mates thought, What are you doing? You're f*****g with, uh, the look, the look of the band. We've all got certain hair that we have.' And they criticised you, and you told one of them to f**k off, and then the next day they all came on very heavy, sort of telling you like that was, you were out of line, your behaviour was disgusting.'"Mel then shared the details of the specific moment and revealed that she was in 'terror' after the incident: "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****d it all up."‌She then explained: "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**k off."‌"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 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*ck, 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."Despite having no idea about how bad the ramifications of her actions would be when she woke up, she revealed she quickly learned she was in trouble and had to speak to their manager Simon Fuller.‌"But obviously, it had really affected people in a way I hadn't realised. So I was in trouble, and then 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?"Elsewhere in the podcast, Mel C hit out at her bandmate Geri Horner for branding Margaret Thatcher 'the first Spice Girl'. Geri told The Spectator in 1996: “We Spice Girls are true Thatcherites. Thatcher was the first Spice Girl, the pioneer of our ideology – Girl Power.”Article continues belowIn the podcast, Mel said: “My whole family are from Liverpool. On my dad’s side of the family, the men have worked on the docks, or they did work on the docks for generations. Obviously, that was very difficult for me because that was not my opinion.”She added: "I mean people know that now. But being a young girl going back to Liverpool… It’s like, ‘Oh, the Spice Girls have said this.’ It’s just like, “Sh*t, I didn’t say it”.Like this story? For more of the latest showbiz news and gossip, follow Mirror Celebs on TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Threads.