Geri Halliwell Shares Spice Girls Memories, Says She Was 'Mesmerized' by Victoria Beckham
Geri Halliwell Shares Spice Girls Memories, Says She Was 'Mesmerized' by Victoria Beckham
by Jackie Willis 11:03 AM PDT, July 12, 2016
Photo: Getty Images
The Spice Girls almost didn't have a Ginger Spice.
Geri Halliwell penned  a piece for Marie Claire , where she reveals how the stars aligned to land her a spot in the beloved girl grou p. "I actually missed the first round of auditions because I was visiting my grandmother in Spain, but something told me to ring the managers behind the ad, Chris and Bob Herbert from Heart Management, to ask if they were still looking," she recalls. "They were. ...I wonder if I would've made it if I'd been in line with all the hundreds of girls who initially auditioned."
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Halliwell also looks back fondly on how they came to be called the Spice Girls. "Ideas for band names were kicked around. 'Touch' was suggested by our management team," she shares. "I was in an aerobics class, and as I was stepping from side to side, 'Spice' popped into my head. I ran back to our house, and as the girls stood at the top of the stairs peering down at me, I called out, 'What about Spice?' They all looked at one another and nodded in agreement."
The 43-year-old pop star remembers performing in identical tight T-shirts when they first hit the stage together, but the girls quickly realized that their individual styles were much more interesting. "Melanie [Chisholm] rocked the sneakers and tracksuits. As for me, I was a mix of everything vintage, sassy, and expressive (depending on what day it was!)," she says. "Mel [Brown] was street and funky; Emma [Bunton] was sweet and baby doll; Victoria [Beckham] was minimalist but designer-driven."
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Halliwell even has a very distinct memory of Beckham's look. "I remember Victoria coming into the studio one day wearing Manolo Blahnik shoes, and I was mesmerized," she reminisces.
"We all had different strong points and personalities, yet we were so similar," she says. "This must be what girl power feels like."
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In January, Adele joined James Corden on the Late Late Show's "Carpool Karaoke" segment and revealed she was a huge fan of the Spice Girls. Halliwell says she felt "so proud" watching the GRAMMY winner express her love for the girl group.  "She connected with us, she says, because we were just five ordinary girls who 'got out,'" she explains. "We all wanted to get out, stand up and be heard, be counted and have a voice that mattered… Our message screamed it for every girl…The Spice Girls is bigger than one, two, three, four, or five members. It belongs to us all."
Twenty years after the release of their hit song "Wannabe," Halliwell still stands by the Spice Girls' message. "Girl power, for me, was a voice for the voiceless, screamed from a megaphone and kicked out hard: ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE," she declares.
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Last month, Mel B shared with ET her memories as Scary Spice. "We just had a lot of fun!" she gushed. "You know, you've got five young girls that are together and just living their dream and doing whatever we want to do, saying what we want to say, wearing what we want to wear!"
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