The one about…Ginger Spice
The Spice Girls without Geri Halliwell would have been quite a different offering. And without this pop powerhouse of self-promotion the whole showbiz world would have been different…
Willkommen! Bienvenue! Welcome!
Now we slip into the curious case of Geri Halliwell.
Admittedly, we didn’t get off to the best start. I was sat opposite her at a friend’s wedding way back when. I was still a Fleet Street journalist at the time, and it was pretty tricky navigating – or tightrope walking – the line between getting to know a celebrity on a personal level and knowing your job was to write about them.
Geri was obviously cagey and wary at the start. And quite right – I’d expect nothing less from somebody who the tabloids would chew up and spit out on regular occasions.
I vividly remember us having a conversation about social media at that wedding. She was very unsure about the whole thing and asked me to explain the benefits in simple terms. But I felt strongly she needed to use her voice online to control her own narrative - especially with the papers being so ridiculous back then. I told her the benefits, explained how it could help her and it felt like she understood what I was pointing out. More than anything, she seemed scared about the concept of putting herself out there.
Within weeks of the wedding, she’d joined Twitter (I don’t think Instagram was a thing at this point) and I could see she was getting to grips with being able to talk to the fans, build a community and right the wrongs of the press when needed too.
Following the wedding, I was more than a little miffed to hear she’d complained about being sat so near to a journalist like me. I’d really made sure I was there in a non-work capacity, and she wouldn’t stop asking me about my thoughts on social media.
Cut to a few months later and I was invited to go to Las Vegas to watch the Spice Girls with a group of boys who knew Geri via one of their parents. The “lads” were telling everyone they were going to Vegas for some boxing match. But that was poppycocks. We were there to see my favourite band! Ha! Lads trying to be butch lads, eh. I was the only gay tagalong that actually gave a crap about the reason we were there. I was firmly in Vegas to see my favourite band. They were putting on macho voices and telling one and all about being there for the fight. LIARS.
Truth be told, we didn’t sleep much during this trip. In fact, we partied so hard (ahhhhhh, the twenties were fun) it was a wonder we all got out alive and with any money left in our bank accounts. But I remember too wildly gross (and highly entertaining) things happening.
Firstly, the Ballagio Fountains outside our hotel room were switched off, switched on and switched off again and we were still sat in our suite chatting absolute shite at each other.
Secondly, our room service guy – a polite and charming old Chinese man – went off shift after delivering a second bottle of vodka for a full night’s sleep and returned to the room to deliver more refreshments….telling us he’d been home for the night and had only just returned. It was nearly enough for us all to start winding up the festivities. Well, not before I ordered two exotic women to the suite to dance for us. I mean. You can order anything your heart desires in the phone book there - and I must have been wasted to even enter this line of thought.
I had to meet the ladies of the night downstairs and bring them up to the room past security. The minute said women entered the suite ALL of the “lads” bolted with embarrassed looks on their faces leaving me to bat them off telling them I was gay (which they genuinely refused to believe and at one point tried to pull my jeans down). In the end I was forced to pay them $600 to go away and every subsequent night we were at this hotel I assume it was their pimp who called my room nearly hourly to invite us to order “more women”. Jeez. I fear I basically ordered hookers to the room…I doubt there’s any women who were purely dancers in Vegas.
Ahhhhh the joys of Sin City and those silly hotel rooms being pumped full of extra oxygen.
Anyway, we were there to see the Spice Girls on their reunion tour. The one in 2008 (I think) when Geri returned to the band. It was classic from start to finish. We were six rows from the front so we could see all the action, Geri had organised the tickets and we got to go backstage afterwards to meet the band.
We passed Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes in the corridor and OBVIOUSLY I said “Oh Hey Tom” in a somewhat manic fashion and waved like a loon. One of our group was/is a pretty big talent agent in Hollywood and literally curled into a ball of shame with embarrassment. But I wasn’t bothered - it was Tom bloomin’ Cruise.
Geri was great afterwards, we met the rest of the band and generally had one hell of a trip. I wish we’d all done a picture with her - but the boys were all being a bit chill and didn’t ask for the picture! Such lads.
So, when I headed back to London and meet Geri at an event and she said: “Hi I’m Geri, what’s your name.” I was left perplexed.
“I was sat on your table at the wedding and we talked backstage in Vegas with the band,” I clapped back. She apologised. But Geri’s always had this remarkable knack of looking confused and making you think you’re the one who has made a mistake. You see the thing about Geri is she’s in Geriland. It’s a fantasticly wondrous land. But she’s always just a little bit ‘Geri’. You kinda never know which Geri you’re going to get.
The thing I’ve admired about her is she’s so focused on what she’s built since being a Spice Girl. She’s had success as a solo artist despite all the challenges she’s faced within the music industry, she’s fearless when it comes to changing lanes and generally this woman has the thickest skin. Also, she appreciates her role as a Girl Power advocate. She wants to inspire, and she really wants to be remembered. You can never underestimate Geri Halliwell and what she’ll do next.
She’s also the Queen of being able to make people talk. The white outfits? The baking? The new music teasing? The self-funded YouTube documentary! It’s endlessly enthralling following Geri’s career.
My friend styled her for a while. Might still do. She was in charge of putting Geri in white outfits for a bit. As I’ve said here before here, I’m told she had her ‘colours read’ by a kook who told her white was the colour she should always wear and she’s stuck by this role ever since.
Then there’s the infamous stories from the start of her solo career when she went into a meeting with her PR and said she wanted to “ride a unicorn” through Old Compton Street to launch her solo music.
“But Geri, unicorns aren’t real” said her PR.
“I’ve seen them in a film – come on…find one.” Or so the myth goes.
She did, true to form, ride a white horse through Soho infront of the press to launch the music. There wasn’t a unicorn horn though…obviously.
Geri would have made a great journalist. Permanently inquisitive and when you interview her you get the feeling she’s trying to read you and work you out at the same time. She’s a charmer but she’s not an easy ride as an interviewee. Always causing diversions and ensuring you lose your track of thought to give her the upper hand and steer the conversation her way. Clever, really.
Out of all the girls she’s probably the one that remains somewhat of an enigma. But she’s definitely the one that gives you all the feels when she reforms with the band. After all, she stood for so much with the Girls. Arguably, without Ginger the band wouldn’t have reached the dizzy heights it did. That Brits outfit. Those nineties hair dyes. That force to be reckoned with spouting Girl Power. She had it all. She knew how to work the press and knew she was going to succeed one way or another.
I guess now she’s married to a billionaire and not short of a bob or two she might be one of the reasons the girls might struggle to get back on the road for anything large scale. Why bother? She’s got quite the life.
But you never know what Geri will do next and you can never underestimate the Halliwell. She’s full of surprises.
Until next week, Kids.