The Masked Singer judge Mel B on her wedding plans and Spice Girls reunion

The Masked Singer judge says the Spice Girls have an exciting project in the pipeline – but before that, she has a wedding to plan.

Mel B and her fiance Rory.

The Masked Singer judge Mel B says the Spice Girls have an exciting project in the pipeline – but before that, she has a wedding to plan.

Mel, 48, surprised fans a year ago when she announced her engagement to hairdresser Rory McPhee, 11 years her junior. Frequently seen by Mel’s side in recent years, many people – including her Masked Singer colleague Dave Hughes – had assumed McPhee was simply Mel B’s hairstylist.

In fact, they’d been quietly in a relationship for around three years before Rory proposed to Mel last year with a $177,000 champagne-coloured diamond ring at the UK’s luxury country hotel Cliveden House.

Visiting the set of The Masked Singer in Sydney in June, I sit down for a chat with Mel B in her dressing room before an evening of filming, passing the quiet and unassuming McPhee on my way in.

Melanie B on set of The Masked Singer.

He seems a world away from the partners Mel’s picked in the past: Her early, ill-fated marriage to Spice Girls backup dancer Jimmy Gulzar; her brief, controversial relationship with actor Eddie Murphy, or her 10-year marriage to businessman Stephen Belafonte, who Mel later alleged had subjected her to terrible abuse while they were together.

But a low-key fiance doesn’t mean a low-key wedding – not when you’re Scary Spice.

“Because I’ve got an MBE [she was awarded one last year for her domestic violence campaigning], I can get married at Westminster Abbey,” she tells me of her wedding plans.

“I didn’t even realise that until my friend Louisa, who wrote my book Brutally Honest with me, told me. But there’s a waiting list, so you have to put your stuff in there early, your request. So I’m just waiting to hear.”

She squirms when I suggest that walking down the aisle at the same venue that’s hosted numerous royal weddings sounds like a big operation.

“I don’t want to think about that too much! I get nervous.”

Mel B and her fiance Rory, who she’s hoping to marry at Westminster Abbey.

The past few years have seen Mel go back to her roots, returning to the UK from LA and moving back to her hometown of Leeds, in northern England. After a long period of estrangement from her family during her marriage to Belafonte, she now lives down the road from her mum, back in the town in which she grew up.

She reveals that the Spice Girls’ last reunion tour in 2019 was the catalyst for the move, as her children asked why they had to return home to America – then took matters into their own hands.

“All my kids were like, ‘Why are we going back to America, mum?’ I’m like, ‘Because that’s where we live and that’s where we’ve been living for the last 25 years.’ And then they were like, ‘Well, I found a school here.’ I’m like, ‘You found a school in Leeds? Not just London, Leeds, my hometown’.”

She soon took the hint.

“And my mum’s one of seven, so literally all my aunties, uncles, nephews, and nieces, we all live within a stone throw from each other. It’s really nice. I’ve come from 10 years of abuse and being isolated, so it’s nice to be around my family.”

Mel B on set of The Masked Singer. Picture: Nigel Wright.

And while she may well be the most famous person currently living in Leeds, Mel says her neighbours let her keep a low profile.

“I mean, I’m a Leeds girl, so Leeds people are pretty used to me coming and going from Leeds, ‘cause my family’s always lived in Leeds and my sister’s always lived in Leeds. So it’s just nice. They just go ‘right, Mel’ and just carry on walking at the supermarket.”

That 2019 Spice Girls reunion shows – just 13 dates across the UK – seemed like a warm-up for a full world tour, but Covid hobbled any plans the group might have had. Four years later, she’s ever the optimist when it comes to Spice Girls plans.

It was Mel B, let’s not forget, who announced “Australia, see you in February!” at the end of the Spice Girls’ last concert to date, at Wembley Stadium in June 2019. That wasn’t to be, but she teases that there is another project in the pipeline.

Mel B, Emma Bunton, Geri Halliwell and Melanie C open the Spice Girls’ 2019 stadium tour. Picture: Getty

“We’re going to be doing something together pretty soon, all five of us, which I can’t say when it is, otherwise I’ll be in trouble as usual,” she says.

“But we’re just still getting it together, but that’s all I can say. Or should I say, that’s all I’m allowed to say. It is going to be something with all five us that you can actually enjoy, for the fans.”

There’s been talk of an animated movie or documentary – certainly an easier commitment for Victoria Beckham, who famously hung up her microphone after the Spice Girls’ last performance as a five-piece, at the 2012 London Olympics.

Much less performance-averse is Mel B, who was every inch the pop star as she prowled the stage in her iconic catsuit during those 2019 stadium shows. She loves the stage so much, this Masked Singer judge has also been a Masked Singer contestant - three times (in the UK, Spain and France).

“If it was up to me, we’d be on tour all around the world, like the Rolling Stones and tour like in our 80s. But I love being up on stage. I feel like it’s my happy place and I don’t want to leave.”

The Masked Singer premieres 7:30pm Monday September 11 on Ten.