It's been a tumultuous year for Spice Girls member Melanie "Mel B" Brown, and just when things were starting to look up, they took another turn for the worse.
The actress has recently been in a horrific accident that left her with very severe injuries.
The 43-year-old took to Instagram to announce the shocking news and thank her medical team, revealing that she had to undergo three hours of surgery to repair "a severed right hand," and "two broken ribs."
The America's Got Talent judge needed to be rushed to the emergency room after suffering a nasty fall at a friend's house.
"Thank you to all the wonderful nurses [doctors] and my amazing surgeon for the care and expertise given to me here at the hospital I've been staying at, " she wrote in the caption of a photo of herself with her arm in a purple sling. "Suffering 2 broken ribs a [severed] right hand needing [emergency] care, to having had to have over a 3 hr surgery to repair the damage hence the purple sling."
Brown also provided more details on the nature of her injuries: "My right arm/hand is all stitched up and I'm trying to keep still to heal my broken ribs, ohh the pain,but I'm in super safe hands with the care of everyone here at the hospital!!!!!"
According to a close friend of the singer, Brown took a spill while trying to navigate a narrow set of stairs in the dark.
"She was upstairs and the room was dark," Gary Madatyan told People. "Everyone knows one of her eyes does not see 100 percent."
He reassured fans that while Brown is in a lot of pain right now, she is expected to be fine. "She just needs some time to heal," Madatyan added.
There has been speculation that Brown, who checked into rehab a few months ago for an alcohol problem, may have been intoxicated at the time of her accident, but Madatyan has denied them all.
Brown, a mother of three, previously turned to alcohol to cope with the aftermath of surviving an abusive relationship that lasted for years.
"She's not a drug addict; she's not an alcoholic," Madatyan told the outlet, explaining that the singer's most recent drug tests have returned clean. "It's just nasty what people are saying,"
In addition to Madatyan, Brown has had a lot of support in her fellow Spice Girls. Aside from the Los Angeles-based Victoria Beckham, the rest of the group members paid Brown a visit in the hospital.
For now, Brown, who recently published her memoir Brutally Honest, had to postpone her book tour, but she should be back in shape to start rehearsing for the Spice Girls reunion tour scheduled for 2019.
