In December 2014, Melanie “Mel B” Brown attempted to die by suicide during an especially low point in her life, she reportedly reveals in her new book.
In an excerpt published by U.K. outlet The Sun from her forthcoming memoir, Brutally Honest, the singer recounts swallowing 200 Aspirin pills, which she’d been stockpiling for years, on Dec. 11,2014, after returning from dinner with her then-husband, Stephen Belafonte.
The X Factor judge writes that although at the time her life looked glamorous, she “felt emotionally battered.”
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“I felt ugly and detested by the man who once promised to love and protect me, my husband and manager Stephen,” she explains. “A man who after ten years of marriage now had a library of sex tapes that could — as we both well knew — ruin my career and destroy my family.”
However, after swallowing the last pill, Brown knew that she had made a mistake, according to The Sun excerpt.
“Suicide was not the answer. I had to make my life count. I had to get to a hospital,” she writes in the memoir, according to The Sun, adding that although her memories from this time are hazy, she remembers “throwing” herself at a jammed door, which left her with visible bruises on her face and shoulder. She writes that those marks that would be visible during an X Factor show she attended three days later.
After collapsing and going in and out of consciousness, Brown claims in the excerpt that she was transported to the hospital, where she lost consciousness again.
Upon waking up, her eldest daughter Phoenix Chi, now 19, was “furious,” Brown writes, according to The Sun excerpt.
“Of all the memories from all those hours, it is the one that still floors me,” Brown says, calling it “the saddest moment of my life.”
While Brown skipped one X Factor show following her hospitalization, even though her doctors advised against it, she made the decision to attend a Sunday taping the following day, The Sun reported.
After calling up her stylist, Brown was told of a few outfit options that would cover the bruises and markings on her arms caused by IV drips, but the singer refused, wanting to wear the original dress she had decided on.
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“I needed all those bruises to be seen,” she writes, adding that she also made an equally powerful choice: to take off her wedding ring, according to The Sun.
This year, Belafonte and Brown settled their divorce and all abuse allegations made against Belafonte by the singer were dropped, according to TMZ, which also reported that Belafonte would receive $5,000 a month in child support in addition to monthly spousal support totaling $15,000.
After 10 years of marriage, Brown and Belafonte finalized their divorce in December 2017. The legal separation came nine months after she filed for divorce that March.
Also in October 2017, the exes reached an agreement on the domestic violence portion of their divorce with Brown agreeing to drop the request for a temporary restraining order she had filed in April against Belafonte.
If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
This article originally appeared on People. For more stories like this, visit people.com.