Mel C insists that the Spice Girls never relied on their looks and revealing outfits as a selling point. In fact, she says they were never “pressured” to look sexy in any way.

The 42-year-old has noticed how many women are “oversexualized” at a young age and doesn’t quite understand why this is widely accepted.

Speaking at the AOL Build Series in London, she said: “In my experience, I wore tracksuits. I never felt that us girls as Spice Girls were never put under any pressure to be sexy.

My question is why do young girls want to be portrayed in that way? There just seems to be a trend of young people being oversexualised extremely young.”

She also recalled when the girls – Victoria Beckham, Mel B, Emma Bunton and Geri Horner – nicked their PA’s Filofax in 1997 during the MTV Music Awards.

“It was at the MTV Music Awards in Rotterdam, it must have been in 1997, it was in the crazy crazy days. We’d decided to leave our management and we were absolutely terrified. At the time there were no iPhones, it was Filofaxes. Our PA had a very nice one, and we nicked it for all the contacts.

Geri, in true Geri style, [hid it] in her bag. We went up for our soundcheck in rehearsals at the MTV Music Awards and Gerri did the whole thing with this bag. We couldn’t let go of it because it had that Filofax in it.”

Meanwhile, the star has repeatedly stated she won’t join the Spice Girls reunion next year to focus more on her family. But Mel B remains hopeful.

She explained: “I had to think about myself and the most important thing in my life, which is being a mother to my little girl. I had to be present for her. It was a hard decision, not only letting down the girls but all the fans who want it to happen.

But we’re four individuals, we’ve gone on to have separate lives and careers and want different things. We always said we had to be comfortable but lots of people were getting involved and I wasn’t comfortable with the direction that it was taking.”