Melanie Jayne Chisholm was born on 12th January 1974 in Whiston, Merseyside (near Liverpool). She grew up with
mother Joan (a singer in a rock band) and her step-father. She has 1 half-brother called Paul, 4 step-brothers (Jad,
Stuart, Liam & Declan) and 1 step-sister (Emma). She always enjoyed sport, P.E. being her favourite school subject, and
impressed with her althletic abilities. She has said she wanted to be either an olympic gymnast or pop star as a child.
At 16, she moved to sidcup in Kent to attend the Doreen Bird College of Performing Arts for her diploma. It was
while she was nearing the end of her studies she found the advert for a girl group in newspaper 'The Stage' and she went along
to the auditions and made it into the band before going on to have major success with the group worldwide. However, she has since spoken of her battles with depression and anorexia whilst in the band.
Melanie has had a successful solo career and been nominated for numerous awards as a solo artist. It began in
1998 when she duetted with Bryan Adams on 'When You're Gone' (which was the song on the radio when Melanie Brown's first
child Phoenix was born) and in 1999 she released her first album 'Northern Star' which had hits 'Never Be The Same Again',
'Goin' Down', 'If That Were Me', 'Northern Star' and 'I Turn To You'. The album did well and went triple platinum in the UK.
In 2003, second album 'Reason' was released with 'Here It Comes Again' and 'On The Horizon' as the main hits.
She then created her own record label, Red Girl Records and she released 2 further albums with her own label - 'Beautiful
Intentions' in 2005 and 'This Time' in 2007. These albums have done better outside the UK in places such as Germany,
Switzerland and Austria. Melanie is the only female to reach the UK number-one as part of a quintet, quartet, duo and as a
solo artist and has 11 Number 1's in the UK under her belt combining all her releases. She also has the joint most Number
1's by a female co-writer in the UK, sharing with Madonna.
In 2003 she was on Channel 4's 'The Games' and showed promise, but pulled out due to injury early on.
In 2007, she began rehearsals for the reunion tour with the other 4 girls preparing for a 3 month stint
in the USA, Canada and Europe from December 2008. It is rumoured she is engaged to long-term partner Thomas Starr.
