Michelle Stephenson

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Michelle Stephenson (born 3 January 1977) is a British singer and television presenter. At the age of 17 she was briefly a member of the English girl group that would go on to become the Spice Girls.^[1]

Stephenson was born in Abingdon, Oxfordshire. Alongside Melanie Brown, Melanie Laccohee (later replaced by Victoria Adams), Lianne Morgan (later replaced by Melanie Chisholm) and Suzanne Tinker (soon replaced with Geri Halliwell), Stephenson completed the original 1994 line-up of Touch receiving the highest scores at the audition. Stephenson was a member of the group for only a short period before commitment issues prompted Heart Management to remove her. Stephenson says that she left because her mother was suffering from breast cancer. "To say I was turfed out of the group when I left because I wanted to be with my sick mother – well, what kind of person does that?"^[2] She was replaced by a girl named Abigail Kis, but only for a short period, and then finally by Emma Bunton after 6 months as the fifth member.^[3]

Stephenson worked briefly as a TV presenter for LWT, ITV, Friendly TV and BSkyB. She also filmed a TV show in Malta called "Wild Games" before forming a songwriting partnership with Ben Hackett and Mike Edwards (under the name SHEsongs). She has also worked as a session singer for various record companies. She performed backing vocals for singers like Ricky Martin and Julio Iglesias, while working on her own songs as well. At the audition, she sang Dina Carroll's song "Don't Be a Stranger".

In November 2003, Stephenson recorded and released six solo songs for SHEsongs called "In Control", "Fall Over", "Hey Sugar", "Dirty Music", "Boom, Boom" and "Happens for a Reason".

In March 2001 Stephenson stated in a newspaper interview, "Of course I regret I'm not a multi-millionaire like them. But at the time I left the group I knew I was doing the right thing – and I still think it was the right thing." She also joked that if she had been in the group that her name would have been Mel S. Also, in March 2001 she stated that if she was a Spice name that she would have wanted to be Sexy Spice.^[4]

In 2007, after The Spice Girls reformed, the documentary of Spice Girls return Victoria Beckham stated that Stephenson never fit into the group. The documentary aired on Boxing Day 2007. Today Stephenson is married, lives in London, United Kingdom, and still works in the music industry.

Albums

• 2003 – SHEsongs EP

References

External links

• http://www.myspace.com/mchellestephenson Official Michelle Stephenson's Myspace
• http://www.flingflang.co.uk/shesongs.html
• http://www.purevolume.com/michellestephenson