Mel C, the Spice Girls star, has revealed she played “boy Bingo” on a dating app before finding love with her boyfriend Chris Dingwall. The 51-year-old from Whiston, whose full name is Melanie Chisholm, went public with her relationship with Australian model/actor Chris last year.
She’s now revealed that they met on the celebrity dating app Raya, after a “drunken night out with female friends” convinced her to start looking for love online. During an appearance on the Life Uncut podcast, Mel said: “Nobody knows this but we actually met on Raya … Yeah, it can work people!
“I don’t know how much I should divulge. I was in a relationship previously and you know sometimes you get to the end of a relationship and first of all, you’re like: ‘I never want to meet anyone ever again and that’s it. It’s just me and my girl [daughter Scarlett] and that’s it. It’s us against the world’, which it still is.
“But then you get to this point and it’s usually on a drunken night out with female friends and it’s like: ‘You gotta get back out there! You gotta start dating!'”.
“So that’s when the Raya profile was set up.”
Mel, who split from Scarlett’s father Thomas Starr in 2012 after a decade together, went on to reveal she used Raya during trips to the pub with her friends.
She said: “So, we’re on this thing, which is really good fun … [When] down at the pub … We used to call it boy Bingo.
“So we’d go through and see if there were any hotties on there … see what celebrities you could spot which was always fun.”
However, Mel discovered Chris’ profile and arranged to meet him in Sydney, where she was heading for a DJ tour, though she nearly cancelled their first date.
She said: “So I’m on the app and in my head I’m like: ‘I’m done with this dude. I want someone who is all the things that he wasn’t and the complete opposite. And I don’t want somebody who’s under my feet’.
“So I’m in London and I match up with this guy in Sydney and I think well he’s absolutely not under my feet and I did have a DJ tour planned and I thought: ‘Well, he’s really cute this is worth pursuing. Even if it’s just dinner’.
“So I came over and it was November 23 and I went out for dinner and this is a flex right … I landed at seven o’clock that morning.
“I stayed awake and I kept busy all day and I went on our first date that night. It’s commitment or desperation ..
“He booked this restaurant, it was hard to get into so I was like I don’t want to let the dude down, I’m going to rock up – and we’ve been together ever since.
“So that’s the story, which I’ve never actually told.”
Mel continued, speaking about her partner: “He’s just a real gentle soul. He’s one of those people that doesn’t get all up in your business. He’s quietly in the sidelines, being uber supportive, and he’s wonderful.”