All Saints singer Melanie Blatt has claimed she was pressured into getting an abortion in the 90s, alongside her bandmate Nicole Appleton.
Bosses reportedly tried to convince the Never Ever icons that having a baby would ‘ruin’ their fame and destroy the band.
In a new documentary, GirlBands Forever, Melanie, 50, claims she became pregnant while at the height of the band’s fame.
She was with Stuart Zender, the bassist for Jamiroquai, at the time, and the pair had only begun dating a short time before.
According to The Sun, in the documentary Melanie shared: ‘I hadn’t been with my partner for very long, it was definitely a bit of a surprise.
‘It wasn’t people congratulating us. It was more like this look of dread and worry and the realisation that things are going to change.’
The band flew to Los Angeles, finding some success in the US charts as well as UK but their success wasn’t on their manager’s mind.
She continued: ‘At the airport LAX our manager, he was behind us, was telling us to abort our babies.’
They were told that having children was ‘going to ruin everything’ and ‘it was the end of the band’.
Melanie did welcome her daughter, Lilyella, into the world on November 20, 1998, the same month the band won the MTV Europe Music Award for best breakthrough artist.
All Saints performed at the ceremony without Melanie but she returned for the band’s next release, Pure Shores, in 2000.
Joking about potential love interests in the music industry, Melanie previously told Metro: ‘Boybands back in the day, were not actually very attractive.
‘If you look at them on their own, each of them … well, you know what young eyes are like — blind eyes.
‘They were shuffling around, doing a little dance routine and suddenly they’re hot. Not personally for me.’
Meanwhile, Nicole chose to terminate the pregnancy, which she revealed in an autobiography she co-wrote with bandmate and sister Natalie.
She was dating Robbie Williams at the time, and his biopic Better Man shows them decorating the nursery together before her management intervened.
In the 2002 book, the Under The Bridge singer wrote: ‘Robbie put his hand on my belly and told me “This baby is saving my life”.
‘After having my abortion, I was in shock. I couldn’t believe what I had done. I wanted to kill myself.’
She added: ‘Afterwards, everyone pretended it hadn’t happened. I was too scared for confrontation. I am only now starting to get my confidence back.
‘But writing about it made me confront it all. I’m so glad I did it. It was there, but I’d never told anyone in detail. It was like I was saying, “Now do you understand why my confidence disappeared?’”
They split in 1999, shortly after the abortion and amid Robbie’s personal struggles with Nicole going on to date Liam Gallagher.
Two years later, she and Liam had a son, Gene, and then tied the knot in 2008, before splitting in 2014 after the Oasis singer had a child with another woman.
Nicole supported Robbie’s retelling of events for his movie, approving the script and coming to the London premiere last year.
At the afterparty, he reportedly dedicated a rendition of She’s The One to his ex.
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