Here's How Much The Spice Girl's Mel C Is Really Worth

In the late 1990s, The Spice Girls were more than a pop band, they were a cultural phenomenon. The British girl group seemingly came out of nowhere and marched straight to the top of the charts clad in platform shoes, Union Jacks, and miniskirts, preaching the gospel of Girl Power to a whole generation. Melanie Chisholm, better known as Melanie C, Mel C, or Sporty Spice, was the group's powerhouse vocalist costumed in a tracksuit.

Over the last 20 years, Melanie C has proven herself to be more than just a Spice Girl, having enjoyed a long and fruitful career of solo projects and side endeavors.

While she isn't the richest Spice Girl (the title of Wealthiest Spice Girl goes to Victoria Beckham a.k.a. Posh Spice who is worth $450 million), Mel C's success as both a Spice Girl and as a solo artist has led to a net worth of $20 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth. Let's take a closer look at how Sporty Spice has made and kept her millions.

Chisholm's dream of becoming a pop star started to become a reality in 1994 after she answered an ad in The Stage newspaper calling for "streetwise, outgoing, ambitious, and dedicated" women who could sing and dance (via BBC). Heart Management was looking to create an all-female pop group and auditioned nearly 400 aspiring singers, eventually selecting only a few promising young women. One of those girls was Mel C, who took her place alongside Mel B, Victoria, and Geri (Emma came along a little later).

In 1996, shortly after the girls' first single "Wannabe" swept the airways, a magazine in London labeled them with their respective epithets based on their personal fashion choices. Chisholm, who often dressed in sporty clothes, appropriately became "Sporty Spice." Their nicknames stuck. "We just embrace them and run with it," she told E!'s Daily Pop.

Though the Spice Girls were short-lived (they were on an official hiatus by 2000) they burned hot and fast, creating a "Spice Girl mania" that has been compared to The Beatles. In the book, "Pop Music: Chart-toppers Throughout History," author Nicole Horning explains, "At that time, the Spice Girls were the most successful British group since The Beatles. In addition, 'they were also the most successful female-pop group, and one of the most successful pop groups ever...'"

More than just a band, the Spice Girls were also a brand, and an extremely marketable one at that. Their manager at the time, Simon Fuller, negotiated loads of profitable deals and partnerships with other companies who wanted a piece of the girls' popularity. Not only did the Spice Girls have their own hot-selling merch like dolls and school supplies, they also had their own Cadbury's chocolate bars, their own Walker's potato chip flavors, Polaroid cameras, lollipops, perfume, makeup — over 100 products, according to the BBC. They were also paid over $600,000 for an advertising jingle for Channel 5 and appeared in a slew of other TV advertisements.

Robert Dodds, 19 Entertainment president, explained to Music Week, "[Simon Fuller] said that if [the Spice Girls] are as big as we think they are going to be, why can't we link with other brands in exactly the same way as the Olympics works with a number of partners?" According to Music Week, "Such thinking was, for the time, revolutionary ... The Spice Girls themselves were, from the very beginning, marketed as their own particular brand, a move that proved groundbreaking in the pop world."

In 1997, BBC News reported "Analysts say the Spice Girls will earn more than £300 million [roughly $400 million] from their marketing efforts this year with a possible £3 billion [or $4 billion] by the end of the century." While it likely never reached that whopping amount, the branding and marketing of the Spice Girls undoubtedly bolstered the fortunes of all those involved, Chisholm included.

In 1997, The Spice Girls starred in their own movie, "Spice World." While the film was a critical failure at the time — it still remains at only 34% on Rotten Tomatoes — it was a box-office success and broke the record for highest weekend debut during Super Bowl weekend ever. The film had a small budget of only $5.5 million but earned that back and then some (majorly some) grossing over $100 million worldwide.

Writer of the flick, Kim Fuller, aimed to create a "surreal" and "weird" comedy (via Vice). But the critics didn't exactly get it. In Victoria Beckham's autobiography (via BBC) she wrote, "The problem was that some of the toffee-nosed pr***s that write the reviews are so totally up their own bums they couldn't see it was a total spoof from beginning to end ... We set out to make a fun movie, kitsch, camp and a lorra lorra laughs. Frankly, I think we did." 

It took a little longer for Chisholm to see "Spice World" with affectionate eyes. She told The Telegraph: "I went through many years where I couldn't bear to watch it. But my daughter had a birthday party a couple of years ago and she was having a movie and a sleepover, and they wanted to watch 'Spice World.' I sat down with them and I actually really enjoyed it, I laughed out loud. It brought back so many memories ... We were so young, and so much has happened since then. But you know in a way, it is brilliant. It's very tongue-in-cheek, very silly. And the thing ... that I really realized, was there was so much of us in it. It was very, very real."

The film has since maintained a cult following.

In 2003, Chisholm "parted ways" from her label of eight years, Virgin Records, according to BBC News. Reportedly, the separation came about after her singles "Melt" and "Yeh Yeh Yeh" didn't perform well, peaking at only 27 in the U.K. charts. An official statement from Melanie C's team at the time stated, "Melanie wants to release her own records in future and will not be looking to sign a new deal."

She did just that and created her own label, Red Girl Records. Melanie C is the only artist on the label. It is completely self-funded, which has allowed her to have total financial and creative control over her own music. When discussing the pros and cons of self-releasing music, she told Music Week, "You'd be a fool, even as an independent artist, to not listen to what people say and there are compromises to be made in any industry. But, at the end of the day, you make the decisions and do what you want to do. The difficult aspect is losing the infrastructure of the major label and the financial support."

Melanie C has also dipped her toes in acting, specifically in musical theater. She made her stage debut in 2009 in the musical "Blood Brothers" to glowing reviews. One critic, for The Evening Standard, wrote "Mel C delicately captures every changing tone, from teenage joy to adult resignation ... If we already knew she could sing, we might not have guessed she'd prove this adept at acting." She was nominated for a Laurence Olivier award for the role.

While we can't say for sure what Chisholm's salary was for her West End stint, an average West End actor makes at least $700-$1,000 a week, according to WhatsOnStage. As such, it seems likely that Chisholm didn't do it for the money but for the experience and love of it. She explained, "I was a fan of musical theatre growing up and auditioned for lots of shows ... It was a big part of my life but then working in pop music I got away from that. So it's really nice to come back to theatre" (via WalesOnline).

In 2012, she took to the stage again to portray Mary Magdalene in a touring production of "Jesus Christ Superstar," again to critical praise. For this role, she won a WhatsOnStage award for Best Supporting Actress in a Musical. Because this production was a big arena tour, it's probable that the paycheck was higher than her West End debut.

Between the years of 2016 and 2019, Chisholm re-evaluated her negative association with her Spice Girl days and hit the road with her former bandmates (sans Victoria Beckham) for the 2019 Spice World Tour.

Still worried she would "[go] back to those emotions" of depression and insecurity she felt when she was a young Sporty Spice, she told the Daily Mail: "I did talk to my therapist a lot about those feelings. I was concerned about having to become 'Sporty Spice' again. Then it just hit me that I am her, but I'm older and happier and I have so much more confidence. Once I realized that, it was a gamechanger. And the reunion tour was magical ... Of all the tours it was, for me, the most special."

Dealing with those personal issues head-on and returning to the band paid off in a big way. The result of saying yes this time: she banked £2,780,556, or approximately $3.8 million.

While Melanie Chisholm is fairly private about her personal life, there are a few details that have been revealed about the places she's lived and the real estate she has owned.

In 2004, when she was in a relationship with property developer Tom Starr, Chisholm purchased a country home in Wales for the two of them to live in, according to WalesOnline. The home had "six bedrooms, three reception rooms, four bathrooms and is set 750 feet above sea level" and cost Mel C £850,000 (over $1 million). She had a daughter with Starr before they split in 2012. Though it's unclear if she still holds a stake in the Wales mansion, as of 2020, she lives in her home in the Hampstead neighborhood of London.

She's always had a fondness for the laid-back (but pricey) Hampstead and it's been her London neighborhood of choice for property-purchasing since the early 2000s. In a 2003 interview with the Evening Standard, she said, "When I first moved to London with the Spice Girls, I followed Emma back to Finchley as it's where she comes from. We both always aspired to live in Hampstead and now we do." In 2017, Chisholm reiterated that it is still her neighborhood of choice, telling The Times, "Now I live in Hampstead. I bought a flat there in the late 1990s with my first lump of Spice Girls money."