Background removal remains one of the most challenging issues in the phase retrieval from a single frame fringe projection pattern. This study proposes a modified fuzzy c-means (FCM) clustering algorithm to remove background from a single fringe projection pattern. To remove the background part from the fringe projection patterns, a modified FCM algorithm was used to divide the fringes into black and white fringes and optimize the modified FCM objective function to get the background part. The performance of this algorithm was evaluated by applying it to two simulated and one experimental fringe projection pattern. Furthermore, it was compared with the Fourier transform method, morphological operation-based bidimensional empirical mode decomposition method, and variational decomposition TV-Hilbert-L² model. The experimental results indicate that the proposed algorithm improves the ability of background removal and accuracy of phase extraction.