AboutAngie Hung Expertise Melanie C (aka Sporty Spice). I can answer things like: -who her idols are
-what kind of music she likes -details of her first solo album -her sexual
preferences -how she likes to relax -why she likes fame -her and the future
of the Spice Girls. I also have contact with a woman on their management
team, so I have access to information that others may not have access to.
Experience Oh, see my Madonna profile for this one.
Question Can you give me some info on Melanie C PA Ying, please? I hear so much about her I just wanting to know a little more about her. Also you are doing I good job on Spice News and on your yahoo clubs. Thanks!
Answer Hi Linda,
There was an article about her from 2000, which I've included below. Later on, Melanie said in an interview that she lives with Ying and her younger sister Emma in her North London home. I think her dad is Chinese and her mom is Caucasian, from Wales. You can find a picture of her here: http://www.madonna-melaniec.com/melcalgary/ying.jpg
I've met her briefly only once, and she seemed nice and reserved and shy. however, I've heard more than a few negative stories about her as well, where she has rudely brushed off Melanie's fans. But that may be a part of her job, although then one wonders how much Melanie has input into such behaviours...
The rise and rise of Ying Yau... girl from the seaside restaurant who grew up to be Sporty Spice's own Chinese take-away... Her father runs a Chinese restaurant and her mother works at Marks and Spencer on Rhyl High Street.
This is the humble background of Ying Yau, constant companion, travelling partners and personal assistant to Melanie Chisholm - better known as Sporty Spice Mel C.
Ying, 31, was always determined to leave the sleepy North Wales seaside town behind and make a name for herself ... and she has certainly done that by sharing a recent Caribbean holiday with the Spice Girl.
As one of her schoolfriends from Rhyl High School recalls: "I knew she would leave Rhyl, she was ambitious and wanted to do well."
Ying's Chinese father Kang Shing Yau, who divorced her mother Suzanne 10 years ago, runs a busy little eaterie called Jasmine House in Llandudno.
She was brought up in Dyserth a little village just outside Rhyl where she shared a bedroom with her sister in their 1930s semi.
Ying would spend hours staring out onto the street from a large bay window in her room, dreaming of a glamorous future.
But she was clever enough to know that without an education she would go nowhere. So Ying - whose full-name is Chai Ying Yau - studied hard.
She left Rhyl High School with a clutch of GCE O-levels - despite spending summer lunch times lazing on the beach in the sunshine with her friends.
Though she lives a more glamorous life now, Ying still returns to visit her relatives. Her aunt Mrs Betty Walton, 84, says: "Ying came to see me about a year ago and she was more beautiful than ever. She told me she was with the Spice Girls and was very excited. I thought Ying looked very glamorous, almost like a jet-setter.
"Ying got where she is today by hard work and the full force of her personality. She was very, very close to her sisters and still is. She hasn't let anything go to her head. As far as I'm concerned she's not forgotten her roots in Rhyl."
While the world is speculating about Mel C and Ying's relationship after they were photographed together on Caribbean beaches, her family describe Ying as "incredibly normal."
Her mother Suzanne, 49, is dismissive about the speculation. She says: "It's all utter rubbish. These people who try to suggest that they're having some sort of relationship just don't know what they're talking about.
"Ying has been deeply upset by these rumours. She knows that she is just a normal girl and so do I. She loves her job and thinks the Spice Girls are fantastic.
"But she wouldn't dream of talking about the Spice Girls because confidentiality is everything.
"She's a hard working young woman who has been involved in the music business for a long time."
Ying's father Kang also jumps to the defence of his daughter, saying: "We are very proud of Ying. She's just a normal daughter - a nice girl."
As well as being Mel C's shoulder to cry on and the woman with whom she shares her ambitions, Ying has had great influence on her pop career.
Since meeting Ying four years ago, Mel has been transformed from the tracksuit-wearing girl next door into a muscular, tattooed solo artist. And this is all thanks to Ying, according to pop experts.
Their paths crossed after Ying left school and headed for Manchester, 50 miles away. In 1991 she persuaded Nigel Martin-Smith, the manager behind Take That, to make her his personal assistant. Ying travelled the world and became close friends with all the members of the band, especially lead singer Gary Barlow and Jason Orange.
When she was eventually replaced as Martin-Smith's, Ying stayed on as a production assistant making the tea and "nannying" Robbie Williams.
After Take That split up in 1996 Ying began looking after solo artist Kavana, who had a Virgin Records contract - as did the Spice Girls.
Simon Fuller, who was running the Spice Girls, was impressed with her and took her on. Although at first Ying was working for the whole band she quickly developed a special bond with Mel C.
A colleague of Simon Fuller, who worked with him on his latest project S Club 7, said: "She was a great girl, very popular. She really hit it off with Mel." Sporty Spice formed her own company, Red Girl Productions - so named in honour of her favourite football team, Liverpool - and Ying has been an employee for the past two years.
She earns around £35,000 a year as Mel's personal assistant and has introduced her to Chinese culture. The result shows in the tattoos meaning "strength" and "woman" on Mel's body which is kept in trim by hours spent at the gym and doing Oriental martial arts.
Mel's favourite food is Chinese and she spends time alone in her home in Hampstead, North London, meditating. Her mother, Joan, also has Chinese tattoos. While Ying was on holiday with Mel in the Caribbean last week a new T registration silver Ford Ka remained parked in the driveway of her pounds 70,000 home in Chorlton, Manchester.
When she is in Manchester her social life revolves around the trendy Living Room club, a favourite with Manchester United stars David Beckham and Andy Cole. Bar manager Paul Newman says: "She drinks champagne cocktails in here with her girlfriends on a Friday night. She is a lovely girl."
Meanwhile, the man years in her home town of Widnes, Cheshire, and to whom she lost her virginity, is not surprised his old flame has gone onto great things.
Ryan Wilson, 25, says: "Mel once said to me, 'The hardest thing about life is deciding what you want, getting it is easy'. Look at her now. I'm so proud of her."
He can hardly believe all the speculation about her sexuality.
They were just 14 when the school friends from Fairfield High School had their first kiss.
They first slept together some months later, a nerve-racking experience for them both. Ryan says: "The Mel I knew was certainbian. We had as passionate a relationship as 15 and 16 year olds can have. Mel was a certainly a passionate girl - about us, about her dancing, about her ambitions. We used to walk home from schooland she'd tell me about her dancing.
"She was always really quiet at school - the quietest of all the prefects. I got such a shock when I saw her pictures as Sporty Spice doing a high kick. She was nothing like that at school."
Mel was also very romantic and often wrote love letters to Ryan which she tore out of her class books. Ryan still has these in his room at the five-bedroom house in Widnes he shares with his parents. His mother Gail says: "Melanie was a charming girl. Very feminine and very pretty.
"Ryan's so proud of her. No one ever forgets their first love."
After leaving school, Ryan took a media studies course and Mel joined a dance school.
Ryan says: "We never broke up - it just sort of fizzled out when Mel became famous. She asked me to keep in touch, but I didn't.
"She's done well enough on her own - she doesn't need me treading on her toes."
