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24 Nov 2025 10:30
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  •   Home > News > Entertainment

    Mel C played "boy Bingo" on a dating app before finding love with her boyfriend Chris Dingwall

    The 51-year-old Spice Girls star - full name Melanie Chisholm - went public with her relationship with Australian model/actor Chris last year and she's now revealed the pair met on celebrity dating app Raya with Mel explaining she thought she was done with romance until she went on a "drunken night out with female friends" who convinced her to start looking for love online.


    During an appearance on the Life Uncut podcast, Mel explained: "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 10 years 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 found Chris' profile and arranged to meet him in Sydney where she was going to be working on a DJ tour but she nearly called off their first date.

    She explained: "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 went on to add of her man: "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."

    © 2025 Bang Showbiz, NZCity

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