Select Page

All Saints singer Melanie Blatt reveals band members were pressured into having abortions

All Saints singer Melanie Blatt has revealed she and bandmate Nicole Appleton experienced pressure to have abortions when the group was at the height of its fame in the 1990s.

Speaking in a new BBC documentary named Girlbands Forever, Blatt, 50, spoke about her manager’s response to her and her bandmate being pregnant, saying, “At the airport LAX, our manager, he was behind us, was telling us to abort our babies”. Blatt added that they were told they would ”ruin everything” and that “it was the end of the band”.

Blatt said, “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”.

Blatt decided against having an abortion and gave birth to a daughter, Lilyella, in 1999, while Appleton had an abortion following pressure from the record company. Following the abortion, Appleton said she felt suicidal, saying, “After having my abortion, I was in shock. I couldn’t believe what I had done. I wanted to kill myself”. 

She added, “I was horrified, violated by what I felt was the power of an industry that leads a woman to sacrifice her child to keep a band together. What mattered was our success and our ability to make money”, she added.

Appleton’s then-partner, singer Robbie Williams, said “she was instructed to get rid of our baby” and that it had “torn him apart”.

Celebrities under pressure to have abortions

Other celebrities have also shared accounts of being pressured to have abortions. In her memoir in 2023, Britney Spears revealed that she became pregnant while dating fellow popstar Justin Timberlake and described her subsequent abortion as “one of the most agonising things I have ever experienced in my life”. 

She said, “Justin definitely wasn’t happy about the pregnancy. He said we weren’t ready to have a baby in our lives, that we were way too young”.

“If it had been left up to me alone, I never would have done it. And yet Justin was so sure that he didn’t want to be a father”.

“To this day, it’s one of the most agonising things I have ever experienced in my life”.

During her appearance on I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!, Spears’ sister, Jamie Lynn Spears, revealed she experienced pressure to have an abortion when she was pregnant at 16, telling fellow contestants and viewers about her teen pregnancy. “When I first got pregnant… They didn’t want me to have the baby”, she said

Despite the intense scrutiny of being in the public eye, she decided not to have an abortion and gave birth to her daughter, Maddie Briann Aldridge.

Artist Tracey Emin has spoken about the mental and physical pain she endured following an abortion of twins that went wrong. At 26, she had an abortion, but it did not go according to plan when the remains of one of the unborn twins were not removed from her uterus. “I felt racked with guilt”, she said. 

Spokesperson for Right To Life UK, Catherine Robinson, said “The fact that Melanie Blatt and Nicole Appleton were put under pressure to have abortions is appalling. The record executives who had a hand in this should be ashamed”. 

“Sadly, they are not alone, as many women, including celebrities, feel pressured into having abortions that they do not want. Hopefully, as more of these stories come to light, women will increasingly have the support they need to resist this kind of pressure and those who would apply it will be prevented from doing so”.

EMERGENCY
APPEAL
to SAVE
lives

Only hours left of the appeal to stop three major anti-life threats.

Only hours left of the appeal to stop three major anti-life threats.

Dear reader,

Thanks to the hard work and dedication of people like you across the UK, the McArthur assisted suicide Bill in Scotland was defeated in March by 69 votes to 57.

Then, in April, the Leadbeater assisted suicide Bill fell in the House of Lords.

Many commentators thought both Bills would become law.

If that had happened, governments in England, Scotland and Wales would now be preparing to roll out assisted suicide services.

Over the coming decades, this would have led to the deaths of many thousands of vulnerable people.

But that is not what happened.

Because supporters like you acted, those Bills were stopped.

Because of you, many vulnerable lives have been saved.

These were two very significant victories. But sadly, they are not the last battles we face this year.

The new Parliamentary session began on Wednesday. We now face three major threats.

  1. Attempts to bring back the Leadbeater assisted suicide Bill and bypass the House of Lords

    The assisted suicide lobby, led by Dignity in Dying, a multi-million-pound pressure group, has made it clear that it is going to attempt to bring back the Leadbeater assisted suicide Bill in the next parliamentary session.

    It then plans to use the Parliament Acts to bypass the House of Lords and force the Bill into law.

  2. Labour Government plans for a major expansion of abortion provision, including financial incentives for ‘lunch-hour’ abortions

    Under these plans, the Government would financially incentivise major abortion providers, BPAS and MSI Reproductive Choices, to provide ‘lunch-hour’ or ‘same-day’ abortions.

    ‘Lunch-hour’ abortion services are walk-in abortion services designed to fit into a woman’s lunch hour.

    Women facing an unplanned pregnancy need time, care and support, not a system that gives abortion clinics a financial incentive to rush them through consultations, scans and abortions on the same day.

    If these plans go ahead, many more lives are likely to be ended by abortion here in the UK.

  3. Extreme abortion up to birth proposals in Scotland

    In Scotland, plans are moving forward to introduce an extreme abortion up to birth law. This would go far beyond the abortion law change recently backed by the Lords for England and Wales.

    A review of abortion law in Scotland, commissioned by Humza Yousaf when he was Scottish First Minister, recommended that the Scottish Government scrap the current 24-week time limit – and abortion be available on social grounds, including for sex-selective purposes, right up to birth.

    The final plans are expected to be brought forward as a Government Bill in the new Scottish Parliament, which began on Thursday.

If these three major threats succeed, thousands of vulnerable lives will be lost.

We cannot allow this to happen.

We can only defeat these three major threats with your help.

We ran our biggest campaigns ever to help defeat the assisted suicide Bills at Westminster and in Scotland.

That work has made a serious dent in our limited resources.

To cover this gap and ensure we can effectively defeat these three major threats in the coming months, we are aiming to raise at least £199,250 by midnight this Sunday (17 May 2026).

We are, therefore, appealing to you to please give as generously as you can.

Every donation, large or small, will make a crucial difference in saving the lives of the unborn and many others. Plus, if you are a UK taxpayer, £1 becomes £1.25 with Gift Aid at no extra cost to you.

By stopping these threats, YOU can save lives during this new Parliamentary session.

Will you donate now to help protect vulnerable lives from these three major threats?

EMERGENCY
APPEAL
to SAVE
lives

Only hours left of the appeal to stop three major anti-life threats.

Only hours left of the appeal to stop three major anti-life threats.