Mel B was diagnosed with dyslexia last year after spending her whole life feeling "dumb".
The Spice Girls star had struggled with reading her whole life, sometimes taking five months to read one chapter of a book as an adult, but in 2017 at the age of 42 she was finally told she had the learning disability.
Mel, 43, admits discovering that she had the condition was a big relief to her as she’d spent decades knowing her "brain was wired different".
During an appearance on UK TV show ‘Loose Women’ on Tuesday (24.07.18), she revealed: "I was diagnosed with dyslexia last year … All my life I just thought my brain was wired different, and that’s why I love the entertainment world and that’s why I love singing and dancing and being creative. I sort of hid it but I didn’t know what I was hiding, I’d see words written backwards and I’d have to memorise lyrics ready it over and over again, or it would take me five months to read one chapter of a book. To get diagnosed with dyslexia made me feel really relieved.
"Now I know why I struggled so much for all these years, especially at school where I was just considered the naughty one, when actually I didn’t understand what they were writing on the black board. I felt very dumb, or thick, because everyone else could understand everything except for me. School was very tough for me because I didn’t understand very much at all."
Mel – full name Melanie Brown – has finished her autobiography which will tell-all on her disastrous marriage to Stephen Belafonte.
But due to her dyslexia, she will not be recording the audio book version of the tome because as well as finding it hard to read she also gets very emotional when she relives the most painful moments of her relationship.
She said: "The book has been a painful write, so I’ve decided I’m not going to read the entire book, I’m going to hire somebody that can actually read it better than I can. I find it very hard to read the book, especially when I get emotional. So I met a couple of ladies and I’ve found the perfect lady to read it. She’s not as Northern as me and her voice isn’t as deep as mine, I know some people can’t always understand me, my voice can be a bit harsh. So for the audio book I want the person who reads it to be a bit softer because the journey and story that I’m talking about is very deep and emotional so I want her voice to be able to go up and down.
"Another reason for me doing this way is that I can only read three chapters at a time of my book because I’m still going through the whole healing process."
Mel has now learned how to cope with her dyslexia and refuses to be embarrassed by the condition as she is convinced it has made her the person she is.
The ‘Say You’ll Be There’ hitmaker shared "There are tools that you can learn, everyone has a different type of dyslexia and mine comes in fits and starts so now I use colours with writing because that helps me understand better. Also talking about it and not feeling embarrassed or ashamed about it helps, and taking a minute with things, so if I’m having difficulty with a word I just take a minute and go over and over it again.
"Now I see it as a gift and a blessing, even now it’s emotional to talk about because for such a long time I didn’t know what was going on with me, but now I see it as this is why I’ve been the way I am and this is why I’ve been part of an amazing girl group and this is why I’ve been able to cope with the pressure, so I’m very thankful for it."
Mel B’s dyslexia diagnosis
