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SPICE GIRLS BIOGRAPHY |
06 September 2010 |
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Luckless father-son management team Bob and Chris Herbert (responsible for creating and then losing Bros just before they became successful) placed an advert in The Stage in late 1992. Four girls cut the mustard: Melanie Chisholm, Melanie Brown, Victoria Adams and Michelle Stephenson. Geri Halliwell was incapacitated following a sunburn incident but blagged her way into the band. |
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Soon after, Michelle quit the band to go to university (although rumour has it she is soon to release her debut single) and was replaced by Emma Bunton, an old friend of Victoria's. The five moved into a pad in Maidenhead, all sharing rooms except Geri, who as the oldest claimed the only single bed! |
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Rehearsing and recording under the name Touch, the fivesome became increasingly fed up of their matching outfits and formulaic dance routines. Already booked to meet writer/producer Elliot Kennedy, they walked out on the Herberts, ambushed Kennedy in the middle of the night and persuaded him to work with them for free. Geri came up with the name Spice in an aerobics class and with a catalogue of songs under their belts, the Spice Girls appointed Simon Fuller as their manager. |
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With the charts well and truly conquered, the girls turned to the silver screen. Spiceworld The Movie boasted appearances by Richard E Grant, Elton John, Elvis Costello, Roger Moore, Stephen Fry and French & Saunders amongst others and topped box offices in the UK and across the Atlantic. And it was actually really good! |
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When Wannabe shot to Number Three in July 1996, the girls were in Japan, having abandoned the UK because of a lack of press and radio support. They were on the next plane home! The following week Wannabe hit Number One and stayed there for seven weeks, eventually topping the charts in over 20 countries. From then on everything the girls touched turned to gold (and platinum). They cleaned up at the 1997 Brit Awards (when Geri wore that dress), pinched Prince Charles's bum, nicked one of Nelson Mandela's toilet rolls and scored another five consecutive UK Number Ones, not to mention topping the US Billboard hot 100. |
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But as the girls' profile and fortune continued to rise they became uneasy about the ever-increasing sponsorship deals negotiated by Simon Fuller. At the end of 1997 they sacked him and installed their own hand-picked management team. Following Simon's departure, the group seemed stronger than ever, but in June 1998, Geri Halliwell shocked fans and the other girls alike by announcing via her lawyer that she was no longer a Spice Girl. |
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Geri claimed she had left because she felt her principles were compromised when the group's schedule would not allow her to do an interview about breast cancer. However, it later transpired that she had always wanted the group to call it a day after their shows at Wembley Stadium. The others had refused and vowed to continue whatever happened, but were still shattered by Geri's departure, Victoria explaining: "No matter what anybody says, it was still one of our friends who'd abandoned us and I felt very lonely after she'd gone." |
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Geri walked out in the middle of the girls' European tour and the show had to be re-choreographed in a matter of hours. After finishing the European concerts, Victoria, Mel C, Mel B and Emma headed to America where they completed a two-month arena tour without cancelling a single show, a feat not even the Beatles accomplished... Plus, two of the girls were pregnant at the time and Victoria was suffering so severely from 'morning' sickness, she was continually throwing up in a bucket at the side of the stage. Nice! What's more, while they were away Viva Forever became their seventh UK Number One single. |
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The following year saw the Spice Girls achieve their third Christmas Number One with Goodbye, a ballad written about Geri. There were also two weddings (Mel B married Jimmy Gulzar, a dancer from the Spiceworld tour, and Victoria married her boyfriend of two years, footballer David Beckham), two babies (Mel B gave birth to Phoenix Chi in February and Victoria gave birth to Brooklyn in March of 1999), various solo projects and much hard work on the long-awaited third Spice album. |
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With two sold-out dates at Wembley Stadium, three consecutive Christmas Number Ones, numerous chart-topping solo projects, a Brit Award for outstanding contribution to British music and worldwide sales which at the last count numbered 18 million singles and 40 million albums, the Spice Girls are the most successful British girl group of all time. Their new album hits stores in November 2000 and with Mel B and Victoria now combining their careers with motherhood, the Spice Girls epitomise Girl Power more now than ever before. |
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