Mel B thought Geri Horner had been "kidnapped" when she left the Spice Girls.
The ‘Wannabe’ hitmaker was so shocked to find out her bandmate had walked away from the group back in May 1998 without even telling herself or Melanie Chisholm, Emma Bunton or Victoria Beckham.
She said: "As well, it was my birthday. I thought of all days she’s leaving on my birthday. I think we were in Oslo. What bothered me wasn’t the fact that she left, of course that bothered me, but the fact she didn’t come to me because I considered her my best friend. They all were, we’ve got really solid friendships. That bothered me more than anything that she didn’t feel like she could talk to me. She was just gone.
"We searched for her in the hotel and couldn’t find her. She’d got herself on a flight and headed back to England. She talks about it quite openly, she was in the crisis of a horrendous eating disorder, and she just felt no way out apart from to remove herself. Of course I was a little bit angry because we had to redo the whole show, and then put the tickets up if they want to reimburse them. Only two reimbursed Geri! [I thought she was] kidnapped or something. We were all kind of a bit frantic. And then we found out she’d gotten a flight and headed back to England. We went into overdrive mode to redo the show, I was trying to call her the entire time."
However, looking back on it now, Mel understands why Geri felt she had to leave.
Speaking on ITV’s Loose Women, she added: "I do understand [the reason she left] on a certain level but the friendship, it was just horrendous for me. I had to celebrate my birthday going, ‘Where is she?’"