United Kingdom, April 26 -- Mel B "would probably never have been in the Spice Girls" had it not been for her local dance teacher.

The 49-year-old pop star found global fame as a member of the world's best-selling girl group in the late 1990s alongside Geri Halliwell, Melanie C, Emma Bunton and Victoria Beckham, but only found a "passion for performance" because there was a cheap class in her hometown of Leeds at a time when her parents could not afford anything else.

She told Living Yorkshire magazine: "Like I say I've grown up being very honest and telling it as it is, which served me well both as a Spice Girl and as a judge on shows from America's Got Talent to Masked Singer in Australia and X-Factor in the UK. As a hyperactive seven...