LONDON – Singer Melanie Chisholm, better known as Mel C or Sporty Spice from the Spice Girls, has opened up about a long-buried sexual assault that happened the night before the British girl group’s first major concert in 1997.

The 48-year-old revealed that the assault took place during a hotel massage in Turkey.

Speaking on English novelist Elizabeth Day’s podcast, the star, who was 23 at the time, said: “I felt violated. I felt very vulnerable. I felt embarrassed.

“And then I felt unsure. Have I got this right? I was in an environment where you take your clothes off with this professional person.”

She added that she buried the incident immediately because she had to focus on the concert, which took place in Istanbul to a crowd of 40,000 fans. The Spice Girls had released their breakthrough debut single Wannabe in 1996, followed by the best-selling album Spice later that year.

Chisholm said: “I didn’t want to make a fuss but also, I didn’t have time to deal with it.”

It was only when she began working on her memoir, Who I Am, that the memories, which had been “buried for years and years and years”, came back to her as if in a dream.

She said she debated whether to reveal the incident in her newly released memoir. “And I just thought, actually, I think it’s really important for me to say it, and to finally deal with it and process it.”