it never got so bad that she had to be hospitalized, she said. but her periods stopped,
a common sign that the body isn’t getting enough calories.
“i was quite unwell for a few years,” chisholm said. “when i look back, i don’t know physically how i did it; when you consider how little i lived on and how much exercise i was doing alongside a brutal schedule.”
later, she found out that murphy had said something similar to her bandmate, victoria beckham (posh), urging her to lose weight as well. beckham wrote about
her own experience with anorexia in her 2001 memoir
leaning to fly. and in 2016, another spice girl — geri halliwell (ginger spice) — told oprah that
bulimia was her “coping mechanism” while dealing with the scrutiny of the spotlight.
the group ended up firing their initial managers, and it was one of their new managers who sent chisholm to an eating disorder clinic. she’s grateful he did, she said, but her problems weren’t over.
the pressures of fame ended up leading to the spice girls splitting up in 2000, shortly before which chisholm started binge eating “to the point of sedation,” and often drank excessively.
“so many of my issues were driven by control or lack of control. i was binge drinking. i was binge eating,” she said. “i was embarrassed and ashamed of it. i had to keep it a secret because even though you’re in denial about it, there’s still that tiny little voice going: ‘this isn’t right, you can’t continue like this.'”
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