Spice Girls star Melanie C's 11-year-old daughter Scarlet Starr made her "braver" and she says she wouldn't have been able to leave her former beau without her daughter's strength.

"Before having kids, even though I had friends and a partner, I used to sometimes feel very lonely ... She's made me braver. Leaving her dad was hard, but I wasn't happy and he wasn't happy and it wasn't the environment I wanted my child to grow up in. I couldn't have done that without the strength I got from her," Mel C told Times newspaper's Weekend supplement, reports femalefirst.co.uk.

The 46-year-old singer "feels bad" for her daughter sometimes because she is the "child of a famous person".

"I feel bad for Scarlet because it's hard being the child of a famous person. I sometimes say, 'I'm really sorry that you are my daughter,' but she just says, 'Don't worry, you are the best mum.' We're already seeing some pre-teen behaviour; she's definitely her own person and she's both embarrassed by me and proud of me," she said.

Mel says parenting can be "one of the most exhausting and unrewarding jobs" at times.