I dated rock star who gave me one item when I told him I was £50k in d | UK | News

Following the shocking loss of national treasure Jilly Cooper, Melanie Blake became the last of the “frenzy queen.” And it’s a crown he wears very well. One imagines him ruling from a luxurious four-poster bed, with a come-hither smile around his pouty lips.

Cooper, Jackie Collins and Shirley Conran are all gone, but relative new girl Melanie, who has two Sunday Times bestselling books under her Louis Vuitton belt, will release the third installment of her Falcon Bay trilogy, Vengeful Women, next month.

Jilly loved her writing and called her out: “Just like me but dirty – Melanie carries the torch for the new generation.”

“Jackie Collins’ daughters told me she would love me too,” says Mel, 49. “I don’t know if the Queen has read my books, but she loved Jilly, so I suspect she’ll throw them away.”

But blue-eyed blonde Blake isn’t sure about the ‘crazy’ label.

“I just heard a professor of female erotica say this: [broadcaster] “Jeremy Vine is a misnomer because these books are hard to write well.”

And when written well, they sell like ice cream in a heat wave. To date, Melanie has scrolled through one million books across all formats and counting.

This spy-turned-novelist has proven to be extremely forward-thinking. The 2022 book Guilty Women, the second of the trilogy, predicted the collapse of the TV series months before Neighbors was cancelled. Blake adapted her debut novel, 2018’s The Thunder Girls, about an all-female pop group, into a popular stage musical starring EastEnders’ Carol Harrison, Coleen Nolan and Coronation Street’s Bev Callard.

When reporters asked why there was no sex in it, Melanie half-joked that she had written something sexier. It was Harrison who first persuaded her to write the book Ruthless Women. The first part of the trilogy sold a quarter of a million copies in the first month alone.

Mel explains: “Carol was the inspiration for everything. In lockdown she said: ‘Why don’t you write that dirty book? Write about soaps and what we’ve all been through.’

It was over, how? “When I wrote Ruthless Women, EastEnders stole the story from my book. Carol and I went to lunch with an EastEnders executive and explained the whole idea of ​​how to bring back her character, Louse Raymond, and she used it without bringing her back… EastEnders executives are the worst!”

Talking to Melanie is an experience. Words flow from his mouth like an unfiltered barrage, and the most repeated phrase in our conversation is “Don’t print this.”

She looks like she’s just stepped out of TV’s Dynasty, with her designer bags, faux furs and real diamonds. Melanie has the strength of Joan Collins’ Alexis Colby and her amorous appetite.

“A lot of my own experiences are in the book,” he admits. “I like tough, tough men half my age. I’ve broken the hearts of younger men than anyone I’ve ever met. They always want me to stay. Young women lose their attraction after being with older, stronger women. Men want sugar mommas, too.”

“Women are no longer ageless; we are working to combat the aging process. Soap women also act like men. When they see something they like, they buy it.”

She pauses and adds: “I’ve been sexually assaulted by pink stars. I’ve been in situations where hands slipped up my dress at award ceremonies. Some I pushed, some I didn’t.”

All of this, he explains, is reflected in his writings.

“When I write, everything flows through me. I have no control. It’s like being Mae Brown in Room with Ghosts. When I was writing Ruthless Women, I cut off contact with everyone and finished it in seven weeks. The second one took 13 weeks, the last one took two years.”

He writes: “Because these women exist for me. I’ve lived and breathed soaps for 25 years. They speak to me. I’ve never needed money. Actors want the world to know what they’ve been through. You can’t make these things up. You have to have been through them.”

Vengeful Women, the latest page-turning thriller written 30 months ago, follows a psychopathic killer and sees series fans interacting with AI clones of their favorite characters.

“It’s a lot darker,” Melanie admits.

A famous actress’ car sex scene was inspired by a real-life Emmerdale star.

Melanie’s childhood was filled with heartbreaking events. When he was 16, a stranger threatened to kill him with a hammer. Shortly after, the rapist was chased by a junkie. He quickly hardened and told a groping taxi driver who put his hand down his shorts: “Give me what you bought, or I’ll call the police; I took all your money.”

The predatory panto producer who performed a sex act in front of him was subjected to similar treatment and had to pay the full fee for the part he did not perform.

Blake’s childhood in Manchester was traumatic. His father, a printer, was drawn into “a reborn doomsday cult” when he was six years old. “We had no curtains, no carpets, no home comforts; he tore my dolls apart; it was as close to the Dickensian style as you could get.”

Melanie left home at 16 and never returned. Growing up, she identified with the strong women she saw on television, like Alexis and the sassy Bet Lynch. When Melanie was 17, she bought a one-way ticket to London. For two years she did promotional work, handing out Tequila shots, and found an sometime lover in the late rock star Michael Hutchence.

“He offered to pay my £50,000 debt. I said no, then he bought me a ring with two sapphire hearts and said: ‘If you get into trouble, take it to the jewelers’.”

When he finally did it it was worth £50,000. “I still have it.”

Through Kylie and Anastasia, Mel landed a job as a camera assistant on Top Of The Pops, working with everyone from Aerosmith to Westlife. After befriending Gillian Taylforth in the EastEnders car park, she joined an extras agency and within weeks she was at the Queen Vic; “Watching Barbara Windsor and Jessie Wallace row like wildcats was so much more interesting off camera than in front of it!”

Blake became a full-time extra on Emmerdale and Coronation Street, meeting and befriending future housemates and clients Beverly Callard and Claire King. He also represented Claire Richards, Nolans, Patsy Kensit, Stephanie Beecham and Sherrie Hewson.

Melanie is being offered TV roles “all the time”, including the second series of Real Housewives Of Cheshire. “My publisher really pushed me to do it but I said no. All they wanted me to do was fight and make headlines. I don’t want that. I don’t see myself as a famous person. Celebrity Big Brother would be the best. I can’t do it in the jungle!”

His warm novels traditionally sold well in colder Eastern European countries, but Australia, Malaysia and South Korea have bucked the trend.

He is considering leaving Crouch End, north London, to move downstairs.

Melanie wants to thank Bond girl Shirley Eaton (Jill Masterson in Goldfinger) for stepping in early. “I was her daughter’s friend and I told her mother about my plan to write The Thunder Girls. Shirley said, ‘Don’t just talk, do it!’ he said. He gave me the key to his penthouse in Marbella and said, ‘Go!’ he said. So I went. “I had gone from a council estate in Stockport to a Bond girl’s gorgeous flat… and I wrote it in a week.”

Pop icon David Bowie also encouraged him. “I met him four times on Top Of The Pops. He asked what I wanted to do, I said I wanted to write and he said, ‘Then you should write.’ Every time I saw him after that, I said, ‘How’s my writing going?’ he asked.

“Bowie, the Bond girl and the lunatics. The 3 C’s – Conrad, Collins and Cooper – are gone, but I have the 3 B’s.”

Mel says working at the BBC gave her security awareness.

“I’ve met a lot of famous people. In one day alone I met Cher, Beyoncé, Britney Spears, The Rolling Stones and Bon Jovi – and no one caressed me. I’m not crazy, but I could be. Just one is enough…”

His autobiography is finished. Will there be another bonkbuster?

“It’s up to the fans,” he says. “If this book doesn’t make it into the top 10, I’ll never write it again.”

• Melanie Blake’s Avenger Women (Piranha Publishing, £11.85) is published on 6 November. You can pre-order your limited special edition hardcover book at: Amazon until stocks last