- Please welcome my buddy Mel B.
[Audience Cheers]
- Hi!
- Mel let's talk about this book because
- Yeah!
- You didn't hold anything on this book and
you highlighted the theme of abuse?
- Yeah.
- Why did you feel important to revealing everything
so brutally honest?
- I just wanted to highlight that.
Abuse is unacceptable and I lived it for 10 years
with my abuser, my then husband.
And it's something that I felt very ashamed about
and I didn't think that anybody was actually
going to believe me, so this book was a real--
- Really?
- Revelation for me, yeah.
- So one of the reasons you really don't come forward
is because they won't believe you. So..
- Yeah
- You feel you get put on trial.
- Yeah
- You have to prove it.
- Yeah
- Is that what it is?
- And when you are in an abusive relationship
you don't want anybody to know that.
It is very embarrassing and you feel very riddle with shame
and guilt and when I left my abuser
I was, I wanted to speak about it loud and proud
like this is now okay and I am one of the lucky ones
I got out and it took me 10 years to find the courage
to actually leave that behind.
[ audience cheers and applauds]
- That's really good, now, you are a mom
and you got three daughters.
- Yeah.
- 19, 11 and 7.
- [Mel B] Yeah.
- [Host] How do you prepare the girls
for the stories that you reveal on your book?
- I mean, mainly my 19 year old cause she was the one
that I guess witnessed a lot of
the verbal abuse and just the chip chip and away that
he would do to my confidence and integrity.
And she said to me:
"mom you are going to have to speak about this"
because it didn't just affect you, it affects your kids,
your friends, your family.
Cause one thing that an abuser does is that they isolate
from your immediate friends and family, so you have no
way to turn.
- Right
- It just gets.. they chip away you day by day,
hour by hour, week by week, year by year.
- [host] Let me ask you this,
before you got married, did you see any warning signs
as you look back on it?
- Looking back now yes, there was every kind
of warning sign, yeah.
- [Host] Yeah.
- But you know? The abuser finds you,
you don't go looking for that.
They find you when you are most vulnerable
and they show up like prince charming.
- Oh, yeah.
- And you think that they are loving and caring
and respectful and they couldn't been
further from the truth.
This isn't just my story, I've been...
I've met lots of women that have experience exactly
the same abuse I experienced.
- [Host] Yeah
- And that's why in the back of my book I do
the 15 warning signs, so that you know what
the red flags are because we don't talk about it enough.
You know? I want to make sure that my daughters know
what an abusive relationship looks like--
- [Host] Right!
- What it feels like before they get into it--so
- Right, because like you said, if you saw
some warning flags looking back on it, but you know
you wanted your heart to be fixed,
- Yeah
- And then you know?
When women don't trust their intuition,
you pay for that every single time.
You all's intuition is very real.
Yeah, that little thing, y'all got is real.
[audience Applause]
[Giggles]
- But let's talk about a little bit more about the book
because one of the hot points in the book was
you talk about your relationship with Eddy Murphy.
You even call him "The love of your life".
- Yeah
- What's one of your favorite memories you can share?
- [Mel B] One of the things that was really like
touched me is he's such a loving caring and
respectful person that when I came to write this book
I had to remind myself:
"Look, I have had a loving relationship".
And that was with Eddy Murphy!
And we have a beautiful daughter to show it.
[Audience Applause]
It took a while to get that because we broke up, no?
In the happiest of circumstances but--
- Why did you think the relationship didn't work out?
- It's kind of like two ships passing in the night
that didn't quite find each other.
It's like a sad ending to a beautiful love story
but we were madly in love,
we got our gorgeous daughter to prove it,
and now every thing is all good.
[Laughs]
- [Steve Harvey] That's good!
[Audience applause]
- Well, let's talk about a little piece of big news.
There's a rumor going around that Spice Girls are reuniting
and you are hitting the road.
[Adience Cheers}
- When our tickets went on sale we only released six days
so we are like waiting by the phone with each other going
"are these tickets going to sell? We really hope they do."
And the support and love was just overwhelming,
so we added another six days and they all sold out!
That was quite amazing!
- [Steve Harvey] Yeah, because they sell out in a day.
- So it's going to be a lot of fun next year.
One chapter of my life is closing, and then
a beautiful other chapter is opening up with my fall latest.
[Audience cheers]
- You are now thinking about bringing the tour to America?
- I would love to bring the tour to America.
I would love to but..
[Audience cheers]
- We all have to agree.
That's the thing right here.
- That is the thing, getting every ones life resorted
- Listen, thank you so much for stopping by,
this book right here, her book is called "Brutally Honest"
everybody, and it's available right now.
Make sure you get a copy.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mel B!
[Audience Cheers]
- [Steve Harvey] We'll be right back!