MELINDA MESSENGER has revealed how she was once sexually assaulted while working as a grid girl for Eddie Jordan’s Formula 1 team.
The former model, who made the Grand Prix appearance with glamor babes Katie Price and Emma Noble in the late ’90s, says it was one of HUNDREDS such encounters she had at the height of her fame.
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But only once did she feel unable to face an attacker.
In an exclusive interview, Melinda, 51, says: “There was a masseur in the team for the riders and he also offered massages to the girls.
“In my stupid naivety I thought, ‘Oooh, a massage, that would be really nice.’
“But then, while I was having it, I suddenly thought, ‘No, this is all wrong.’
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“Fortunately, I was able to escape in time. I didn’t report him. I’m done with it.”
But Melinda is haunted by the experiences she never shared.
She says: “There were hundreds of them. For real. hundreds.
“But I have to think it is what it is. I have lived a very fulfilling life and opened myself up to many different experiences, and with that some are good and some are not so good.
“I didn’t have the ability to protect myself properly.
“I had terrible boundaries. Non-existent borders. I didn’t know how to say no.
“I didn’t know how to stay out of situations that couldn’t potentially be great.
“But now I know how to take care of myself. Now I know what it really means to take care of yourself.
“I exploited myself willingly, don’t forget that. I was pretty lucky to go and get paid to look glamorous. So self exploitation.
“But I’m okay with that. That’s my part in the game.
“The only time I ever asked anyone about it was when I was doing a photo shoot for a catalog in my 20s.
“The photographer was really inappropriate and made a lot of sexual comments and really came across and was aggressive and quite predatory.
“Other times I let it slide.
“But I left the shoot and refused to go back.
“I was flown to LA to do it and it caused a big ole fuss and he called me and said, ‘You’re going to ruin my reputation, why are you doing that?’
“I’m scared for young women who are taking pictures now. I would say, “Make sure you have really good boundaries and that you value yourself.
“Nothing’s worth it”
“Don’t let that put you off. Absolutely don’t allow it. Nothing’s worth it.”
Mum-of-three Melinda rose to fame after she was spotted on a billboard for a window company in Swindon in 1997.
Within months she was a household name.
Today she admits she hid behind her looks to cope with crippling insecurities.
She says, “Putting heavy makeup and money on my looks served to cover up insecurities about not feeling really good enough.
“For me it was a mask. It was a way of trying to feel good about myself because I didn’t feel that way inside.
“I had to work really hard to cope with the red carpets, I was really nervous to be in front of a big crowd.
“Inside I was scared, like a shy horse ready to run away.”
Melinda is mum to sons Morgan, 22, and Flynn, 20, and daughter Evie, 18 – and despite her amazing modeling career, she hopes her daughter doesn’t follow in her footsteps.
She says: “I don’t want her to feel like this is her only role to look glamorous.
“I can talk to her now because I had that experience.
“I have unconsciously exploited myself. All I ever really wanted was to be wanted and to feel loved.”
After finding fame, Melinda’s life changed immediately.
She says it went “from hanging out in the same five or six bars in Swindon to hanging out overnight at movie premieres in London”.
She adds: “Once I was at a party with actor Tobey Maguire, who played Spider-Man, after a movie premiere, and he started approaching me.
“He kept coming up to me.
“I was with some friends and he was dancing with me and I didn’t know who he was.
“His PR came and said who he was and were we going out on a date?
“I had a friend and said no, but it freaked me out.
“On another occasion, Val Kilmer asked me out on a date through my agent.
“I was sitting at home and I was like, ‘Oh my god, is that that Batman?’ I had a crush on him, but I also blew him out.”
“I HAD IMPOSTERS SYNDROME”
Still, she says, “I never saw myself as famous. I felt like a normal person that I was in this extraordinary world.
“I had imposter syndrome and I still have it.”
Melinda married her boyfriend Wayne Roberts but they separated in 2012 after 14 years of marriage and the birth of children.
She has since dated a ski instructor she met while appearing on Channel 4 reality show The Jump and had an eight-month relationship with a man she met on Channel 4’s First Dates.
But now Melinda, who will be studying psychotherapy this year, is looking for love again and after a series of disastrous relationships has joined Sara Eden dating agency.
She recently dumped a man over his determination to take her on a £20,000 holiday.
She says: “I was introduced by friends but red flags started to appear.
It started with, “I really want to spoil you and take care of you,” which sounded nice, then he said he wanted to take me on vacation in a few months.
“It was a big push – and it was around £20,000. He was very adamant and booked it.
“Then he said, ‘I want to go shopping with you,’ and I said, ‘Why? I am perfectly capable of going shopping myself.
“He wanted me to have a bikini for every vacation day, as if I couldn’t do my own shopping.
“It felt like a transaction where he bought me nice things to look a certain way, not a relationship.
“I’m not a trophy and I don’t want to be one.”
“I HAVE HANDLED EVERY RED FLAG”
Instead of a week-long vacation, she allowed herself to be persuaded to go to a posh ski resort with her admirer for a weekend.
She recalls, “He said, ‘Dating you is like winning the lottery.’
“He was totally unaware … then he said how attractive a waitress was … and then when this poor woman walked by our table, he grabbed her hand and kissed her deeply, and I just sat there and thought,” what the hell is going on It’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Luckily we wanted to go home the next morning.”
Melinda insists that she has neither the urge nor the desire to get married, but would love to find someone to share her life with.
She says: “I used to be the classic Mrs Fixer. I’ve dealt with every red flag you can think of.
“I see the potential and I think I can help someone process their junk, heal them.”
When she registered with the dating agency, she deliberately made a bad impression of herself.
She says it was “in my lounge, in broad daylight, no makeup, with all the wrinkles visible,” adding, “I was just like, ‘If anything comes out of this, I want it to be honest and truthful to me.’ don’t want it to be like, “Oh, that’s the ex-model” because I was 27 at the time.
“Who wants to be dated the way they were back then?
“It’s not easy to meet people, especially as you get older it gets harder.”
Melinda is still approached online by men half her age.
Laughing, she says: “To be honest, it surprises me, especially when it comes to a young man in his mid-twenties.
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“I’m like, ‘Seriously dude, I’m 51. I could be your mom. What do you think?’
“I giggle to myself and think, ‘You’ve got a mother complex going on here. You have to go and work on it’.”
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