All Saints star Melanie Blatt has opened up about the “tricky” time when the band’s manager told her and Nicole Appleton to abort their pregnancies and she chose to keep her baby while her bandmate didn’t.
All Saints star Melanie Blatt felt “uncomfortable” after she chose to keep her baby while her bandmate Nicole Appleton underwent an abortion.
The pop stars both became pregnant around the same time back in 1998 with Melanie expecting her first child with Jamiroquai bassist Stuart Zender and Nicole expecting a baby with fellow singer Robbie Williams – and their manager told both women they should have abortions but only Nicole went through with it.
Speaking in new BBC documentary Girlbands Forever, Melanie explained: “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.
“We flew to LA and at LAX [airport] our manager, he was behind us, was telling us to abort our babies. [They told us we were] going to ruin everything … [and] it was the end of the band.”
Melanie went on to explain it ended up feeling “uncomfortable” when the two women made different decisions about their pregnancies.
She added: “Nic and I had been best friends since we were 11. We took pregnancy tests in a hotel in Canada and spent that whole night discussing bringing our kids up together. It was one of the best nights ever.
“And it’s not really my place to talk about it, but unfortunately … it was a very uncomfortable situation because I kept mine, she didn’t. That was a really tricky part of my and our existence.”
Melanie welcomed a daughter named Lilyella in November 1998 and she stayed with her partner until their split in 2006 while Nicole went on to marry Oasis rocker Liam Gallagher and welcomed a son named Gene. They split in 2014 and Nicole later gave birth to a daughter, Skipper, in 2002 with Stephen Haines, who she married in 2021.
Robbie Williams has previously opened up about Nicole’s pregnancy and praised her for allowing the story to be included in his biopic Better Man.
He told Britain’s HELLO! magazine: “The most difficult bit [of the film] is watching Nicole and what we went through, because she was instructed to get rid of our baby.
“And with that bit of the film, I can go: ‘Hey, you did a wrong thing and that’s the reason you’re going under the bus.’ You know?
“But with Nic, I did the wrong thing. It wasn’t that bit, it wasn’t the abortion – I didn’t make her do that – but I was a f****** awful boyfriend, like really awful, and I was in the height of my addiction and alcoholism.
“And it breaks my heart every time I watch it, because she’s a complete angel and there’s still shame attached to who I was then.”
Melanie Blatt was told to abort her baby
