The Louis Theroux Podcast - S8 EP5: Melanie C on Spiceworld, comparing muscles with Arnold Schwarzenegger and why she’ll always be a Spice Girl

Episode Date: July 6, 2026

In this episode, Louis speaks to singer, songwriter and Spice Girl Melanie C. Speaking ahead of the 30th anniversary of Wannabe, Melanie and Louis discuss deleted Spiceworld scenes, showing off her guns to Arnold Schwarzenegger and why there’s no such thing as a ‘former’ Spice Girl.     Warnings: Strong language and adult themes.     Links/Attachments:    Song: Wannabe, Spice Girls (1996)  https://open.spotify.com/track/1Je1IMUlBXcx1Fz0WE7oPT      Song: I’m So Excited, The Pointer Sisters (1984)  https://open.spotify.com/track/3moCFGH9twneH0SHMNeeCt     TV Show: Friends – NBC (1994-2004)  https://www.netflix.com/title/70153404     Song: Say You’ll Be There, Spice Girls (1996)  https://open.spotify.com/track/1yTQ39my3MoNROlFw3RDNy     Book: Who I Am, Mel C (2023)  https://www.waterstones.com/book/who-i-am/melanie-c/9781802793383     Film: Spice World (1997)  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120185/     Album: Sweat, Mel C (2026)  https://open.spotify.com/album/2ZrlQz1UiDn1pCThyICAeD         If you've been affected by the topics discussed in this episode, visit spotify.com/resources.    Credits:  Producer: Millie Chu   Researcher: Mark Maughan  Audio Mixer: Tom Guest  Video Mixer: Scott Edwards  Assistant Producer: Maisie Williams  Production Manager: Francesca Bassett   Music: Miguel D’Oliveira   Executive Producer: Arron Fellows       A Mindhouse Studios Production for Spotify   www.mindhouse.co.uk   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello there, it's me, Louis Theroux. Welcome to my podcast, the Louis Theroux podcast. My guest today is singing a songwriter DJ and perhaps most iconically Spice Girl, Melanie Chisholm, aka Mel C. Melanie was of course the high-kicking, back-flipping, track suit wearing, sporty spice, making up one-fifth of the best-selling girl band in history. She was catapulted to stardom with a release of hit single Wannaby in 1996, which reached number one in 37 countries. The Spice Girls became a symbol of girl power. I don't think they coined the term,

but they became synonymous with it and popularized it. Also, Cool Britannia and General Globe Conquering Pop Hegemony. But the band also faced intense media scrutiny, public backlash and various internal conflicts, some of which we lightly and gingerly touch upon in the chat. Melanie was, I think it's fair to say, and in fact I did say it in our conversation, widely regarded as the best singer of the group.

I don't think that's controversial. Who knows? And after the Spice Girls hiatus, she enjoyed a successful solo career, with forays into pop, rock, R&B, and more recently, House slash Dance, with the release of her latest album, Sweat. We recorded this conversation in,

mid-April this year at Spotify HQ. She turned up looking amazing, youthful, preternaturally, whatever that means. I mean, she just looked good. Did I look good? You're wondering, not for me to say, but yes. A quick warning, this conversation contains some strong language, adult themes and discussion around eating disorders, all that as well as much else besides coming up. There's so many things I want to say to Louis because my daughter's 17. And she's She's a cool kid, Mike. She knows all the stuff that's going on out there. And she's never impressed by anything I ever do.

It's all a bit cringe. But you have managed to stay relevant. Thank you. Because she was very impressed. I was speaking to you today. Very pleased to hear that. Yeah. I'm clinging on.

So, there's so much to get into. I'm a little older than you. I bet it's not much, though. How old are you? I was born in 70. 74. So you got a little. a few years on me. We'll have the same cultural references, I'm sure. And I was thinking about

what a phenomenon the Spice Girls were. I was living in New York when wannabe came out. It was pointed out to me that it was 30 years ago almost to the day that Wannaby dropped. Is that possible? Yeah. I think it came out July. Gosh. June or July, 96, anyway. July came out in 96, so yes, this summer is 30 years since Wannaby dropped. I mean, the Spice Girls went on to become a phenomenon. There's much that could be said about that. But one of the most remarkable aspects of the whole journey was that launch, that moment of launch, that everything that epitomized the Spice Girls was encapsulated in the video and in the song. Infectiously catchy, naughty, uptempo, disruptive.

Chaotic. Chaotic. Annoying. The metro, as John O'Brien said, from its lyrical things, themes of female solidarity to its insanely catchy pop hooks and mischief making promo, the worldwide shot topper. It was number one in how many countries? I think it was about 37. 37. Yeah. Encapsulated everything that made the group so spellbinding in the space of just two minutes and 52 seconds. Someone else said it's hard to imagine any other pop act managing to make this much of an impact

so quickly and effortlessly ever again. It was all of those things. And, What is so brilliant about it was our collaborators on that particular song, Matt and Biff, who we went on to have so many. Matt Rowe and Biff Stannard. Yes. I don't know Biff. I feel like I know him. He's co-written with you a lot.

I work with him. Every album I'm working on, I will do some sessions with him. Biff had worked with E's 17 a lot. He did. He did. And the way we met Richard, Biff Stannard, we did a showcase at a place called NOMIS Studios, which was in Shepard's Bush. This is another legendary moment

in the sort of spice story. This is late 95, I think. I think you're right. Yes. So we'd been auditioned in 94. Should we start at the beginning? Should we start at the beginning? It's a very good place to start.

So yes. So I went to Performing Arts College in 1990. I was 16. I grew up in a place called Witness, which is, I would say, right in between Liverpool and Manchester. all of my family from Liverpool. And moving from the Northwest, a very working class background,

not much money to spare. So I was lucky in the fact I could qualify for a grant, which I won and that enabled me to go to Performing Arts College in Kent, sick up in Kent. And I was there for three years, completed my course, was going out doing auditions, but always had this longing to work in the music industry. And then one day I'm handed this flyer for a girl band,

and yeah. The advert said, Wanted, are you 18 to 23 with the ability to sing slash dance? Are you streetwise, outgoing, ambitious and dedicated? They were putting together

what they described as a singing, dancing, all-female pop act for a recording deal. And so you went along to the audition. Remind me what you sang. So I sang, I'm so excited by the Pointer Sisters. And the reason I sang that

was because my mum's also a singer. And this is, let's remember, this is back in the day. We didn't have, you know, any technology. And we needed sheet music. And I didn't have any sheet music, but I knew my mum had some. So she actually posted it to me in London. But yeah, that was one of the songs. I knew it was in the right key for me.

So that was a song that I sang. She couldn't have attached it as a PDF. We had emails, but we didn't really do that. Did you have emails in 1994? Did you not? I did. No. I think I, maybe did I have a pager at that point?

I think, yeah, that was my means of communication with people. It's like talking about carrier pigeons. Isn't it? Yeah, and bathing in front of the fire and no cars. Like a horse-drawn carriage down to that. It's like Dick Whittington. Crazy. So it's actually part of legend, really,

and became part of your creation myth that, having placed the ad, Chris Herbert and Bob Herbert, But assembled the fabulous five, right, the five of you. He said that he was influenced partly by Friends. Do you know that? Not the Friends, the TV show. Okay. Yeah, I haven't heard that before.

Yeah, where he was like, oh, there's everyone like someone on Friends. You like Monica or you like Phoebe or you like Joey. And he wanted to do a sort of music version. Of course, in the background was Take That. Yeah. That boy bands had become a big thing, drawing their inspiration from America. New Kids on the Block. There were also American R&B, girl groups, SWV, NV, TLC, TLC.

So all of these influences, nevertheless, there wasn't a really high... I mean, Eternal were making music, but not in the mainstream pop space quite so much. Well, when we got there, the first thing we did at the audition was we just had to dance. It was, you know, freestyle to a piece of music. And it was Eternal Stay. And I was a big fan of the bands at the time as well. great song. I mean, they were the British girl band. They were the ones doing it at the time. Yeah. But nevertheless, you were bringing something different to the table, the five of you.

And, you know, it is incredible because there were a few line-up changes. I wasn't in the original five. When I first met the girls, it was Jerry, Melby, Victoria and Michelle. And there was a girl. I think she was called Melanie as well, another one before me. There was another called, three Melanie. Yeah, we were all born in the 70s. It was a very popular. name. And she'd gone and I stepped in and then Michelle was like, the other four of us was so single-minded and determined this is what we wanted to do and we wanted to make it happen. But she was like, should I go to uni? I'm not sure. So that wouldn't cut it for us. And yeah, and who knows, you know, how it would have all turned out. But I always say when we were introduced to Emma, everything fell into place. Emma Bonton. Yes. Babes.

Spice, our baby. Oh, I didn't finish what I was saying about wannabe because we've backtracked a little. With Matt and Biff, they wanted to capture this energy, this chaos that was the spice scales. Matt and Biff, Biff's talent, we've done that. We've introduced up with it. They're on stage. We've introduced them.

Yes. But just to remind listeners, they turned up for your showcase in Shepherds Bush at a quite, I would say, low ebb, or it was a moment when you weren't sure things were moving quickly enough, right? You were still with your original management You're like, when's it going to happen? Come on.

Yes. The reason we had that showcase is because we were like really ambitious. We were, you know, we were naive. We admit that. But we just knew we had something really special. We hadn't written any music at this point. We were singing songs that they'd had written by a lot of middle-aged men. The songs were shit.

You know, we didn't even like the songs, but we just knew we had this energy. There was this dynamic between us, which, still exists to this day. You know, none of us are like musicians. You know, none of us play, really, but we weren't like a band in that sense. You know, we could all sing, you know, we're not the greatest singers in the world,

you know, people have got their opinions on that, but we could all sing, we could all dance, again, not the greatest dances in the world, but we were all performers, and we were all just this belief and this longing, you know, we wanted to be on stage, we wanted to be famous, you know, we wanted to travel the world,

We wanted to sign autographs. All those things, as a young person, we'd all grown up having this fantasy. And so we'd found our people. Your people, meaning each other, your little tribe. Were you living together at this point? We were. That was a Chris Herbert thing, I think, because later on he created and managed five. Yeah.

And he put them in a house together. What do you think that did? It was really important that time. You don't know someone until you live with them, right? That's when you really see them. and all, isn't it? And it just got us to really know each other, really understand each other.

And I think as a band, it's really important because when the schedule gets hectic and you're travelling around the world, you're away from your family, you become each other's family. So you need to be able to be in very close quarters. So I think that's a bit of a genius move, really. And it was so fun.

You know, as young people, it's great. He was smart about filming stuff too. He filmed a lot of behind-the-scenes content of you at the house. And it's still, crackles with life and disinhibition and feelings of real realness friendship arguments but a sort of very relatable sense of it not just being a show business confection that you know not withstanding that you were put together by a manager it quickly catalyzed into the real thing right real friendships yeah real feuds real fallings out the whole bit so you were saying so then you

do your showcase um well we'd pushed him to do the showcase because it was moving too slow. And we were like, you know, we want to deal, we want to say, we want to get there. And he was saying, just hold up a minute, you know, don't run before you can walk. So we'd already decided we were going to jump ship. Really? Bail on the managers. You weren't on contract.

Nothing they can do about it. But get them, because we had no contacts in the music industry. You know, we didn't have a clue. So we got this showcase, we got them to pay for the showcase and organize everything and get the people down, knowing we wanted to make the contacts and then... It's on your hook. Mm-hmm. Because we knew we had something great, but that was confirmed for us when we saw these industry

people go, hang on a minute, yeah, something here. And that's when we... I don't know how we did it, but somehow, maybe Jerry's like so smart at these things, but we got names, we got numbers, we chased up these people. I remember being in, so Jerry had a little fear, you know, that was like our little Spice Mobile and it was battered, she'd had so many little knocks in it. And we were sitting outside BMG and she gone up to see Mark Fox. PMG, the label, the record label. Yeah, so he was at publishing, but I think it was all in the same building at the time.

So me and Mel were in the car. There's other stories, and maybe we're not divulge on the podcast. Mel Beals needs a wee. I'll leave it there. And Jerry went up to speak to Mark. And from that moment, he took us under his wing. And I'm sure, and I know he probably would have liked to have been part of the management. but he was very gracious, introduced us to lots of management,

to a lot of the songwriters that were in the rooms, and we were kind of trying to find our way to salmon fuller. That was the plan. Were you called the spice girls at this point? We were called spice. Spice. Before that, you'd been called... Touch. Touch.

Whose idea was spice? Spice was a Jerry idea, and me and Jerry were down at the gym, as we do, often, in the evenings after rehearsing, and it just came to her. She was like, we're all different, like, spices. You know, we have the flavours. Plus five letters as well in the word, which helps.

I mean, everything about the sort of, well, I'm trying not to call it packaging, because that sounds like you're a product. A product. But we kind of were. It's a funny thing the spice goes, because, you know, obviously I've been talking about it for 30 years, but so many people still refer to it as a manufactured band. And of course, in many ways it was. But the material that was being manufactured was really organic and authentic.

That's maybe the secret that people miss. You know, like, well, what is it? What is it that makes the spice girl so successful? The longevity of it, the legacy. It's because it was real and it was marketed beautifully. Yeah. Yeah. Who came up with the names?

It was Peter Lorraine, who was the editor of Top of the Pops magazine at the time, now a very successful music manager. we were at a lunch. This is all being reminded to me when I was doing research for the book because a lot of this is like gone. Lost in the midst of your brain? Yes.

I mean, we did so much in such a short space of time. It's really nice to see the other girls because we fill in the gaps for each other. Can I just pivot on that for a second? Because I made a couple of documentaries not as a presenter but as an executive producer. One about boy bands called boy bands forever.

One about girl bands called girl bands forever. Yeah. And it was really striking how, for a lot of the people involved, they're talking about a time in their life of such intensity when they were in their late teens, early 20s, that it's almost like talking to war vets who have been in a war. And it might have taken place over the course of two years. Like in the case of the heyday of the Spice Girls from wannabe

in 96 to Jerry leaving in 98 was less than two years. Insane. Nothing. Yeah. And then for the next 20 or 30 years, these veterans of boy and girl bands are kind of figuring it out and thinking about what it meant and how in control was I and was I exploited or was I exploiting and who am I angry at? Does that resonate with you at all? It absolutely does. And I know I have this period of time which I call integrating into society or integrating back into society because when you, if you're lucky enough to have that kind of success, your feet don't touch the ground. You're travelling across the globe, working, you know, sometimes seven days a week without a break.

You're young, you're resilient, you can do it, but you are in fight or flight, living on adrenaline. So when Gerry left, that was obviously a really difficult time for us, girls. We were two shows shy of finishing the European leg of the tour. Then we were going to America for three months. This was your first tour as well. This was our first tour. You'd achieved all that success on the back of PAs and releasing music and videos but not live events, not live touring. We've done two shows in Istanbul.

We've done a collaboration with Pepsi. And this was the thing what frustrated me as a pop star. I always wanted to perform. That is what drives me. When you become successful as a pop star, you spend most of your life doing all the other shit. You know, there's not much live performance. performing, that goes on. It was very much promo, promo, promo, promo, you know, product deals, adverts, and it's like, when do we get to do the day job, you know? So that was frustrating. But the first time

we did it was on this huge stage in Istanbul. So it was Terrafang, she had two nights in Istanbul. And then, yeah, 1998, we went out on the World Tour. So we were managed by Simon. We left him before the tour started. But his thing was always, get two albums. under your belt before you hit the road because obviously you need enough material to do a headline show. Yeah. In the book you've written a book about your experiences

it came out a year or two ago I think. Who I am. Your account of Jerry leaving in the book talks about you were making a video in the Mojave Desert for Remind me which tongue it is. Oh, okay, so Say You'll Be There was the second video and yeah, and we shot that in the Mojave Desert.

it. Probably the song that people went, ah, okay, there's more to them than one of it. It was a very important song. So what you've talked about is that there was a fallout over who had more screen time in the video. Oh, yeah, I remember that. Well, it makes me laugh now, and we do actually laugh about these things, because back in the day, you know, we were young. We wanted equality.

We spoke about equality quite a lot. But there was, yeah, a little bit of preference over certain girls. And, you know, we weren't happy about that. Go on. There was no lead singer. Spell it out. No. You don't have to.

No. People can read the book. Yeah. I couldn't figure it out because then I looked at the video and it's like, well, I can't tell who's getting more screen time. But it's very equal. It's very equal now. I think the first cut. The director had taken a shine to a particular member of the group. So they were very heavily featured. But that led to an argument which led to Jerry leaving. Yeah. And, you know.

There's always more going on. Young girls, there's so much going on and get five of them together. And there's going to be clashes, you know, we were big, we're all big personalities in different ways. The narrative is generally that Mel B, Scary Spice, and Jerry, Ginger Spice, were the two big personalities. Then you got Victoria, Posh Spice and Baby Spice, Emma, sort of, I guess, you know, not as vocational. and then you're the peacemaker. That was the phrase. Yeah, yeah, it's true.

Okay, so getting into the inner workings of the band, like any group of people, there's a dynamic. And what was difficult for us was that Melanie and Jerry were really great mates, but if they had a fallout, it would affect everybody. I think because they were both so outspoken, and, you know, myself, Emma and Victoria didn't, you know, I didn't, I don't know, we didn't have as much air time as the two girls. I don't mean that in a thingy sense.

I mean, like just in the room. So that would cause issues sometimes. But I think... And Jerry saw herself as a bit of a co-manager. I think if it wasn't for Jerry and Melanie being the way that they are, we wouldn't have been as successful as we were. You know, Jerry is an incredible person to push things forward. You know, she's really smart.

She's very creative. and, you know, she's a little bit older. She's a couple of years older than me. And she'd had some professional success because she'd been a TV presenter in Turkey. She'd definitely done more work. Melanie had worked as well as a dancer more than the rest of us.

So they had a bit more world experience as well. They were the leaders. They were. And to have two leaders is, you know, it's hard. But Jerry definitely has that kind of, in some senses, you know, we feel like it's Jerry's band. You know, she often,

I think maybe because she was the older one, she was a little bit more maternal as well. So, yeah, so sometimes that could be tricky, especially when you're all becoming successful. You all have a profile in the public eye. So yeah, I think any band can kind of be a little bit shook by that. But we were really good, in a sense, at self-policing. It was tough sometimes because we were really hard on each other,

not hard on each other in a mean way, But just like if someone was acting off a little bit, we'd just pull them back into the field. And, you know, at the time, you probably thought, fuck's sake. But actually, it saved us in the long term. We are very proud that we remained friends. We've had our ups and downs. But no one's gone completely off the rails at any point, really. Off the rails meaning off the reservation, do you mean?

Like, off the rails implies like mental health emergency. Do you mean that or do you mean no one's completely left? left the womb. The womb. I mean, you know, like, Victoria is obviously the furthest in her own lane in a sense, right, given that she wasn't part of the last tour. I think, yeah. And also, she's the one who has gone, like you say, the furthest in career terms.

She's gone in a completely different world. But, you know, it's funny. We've kind of, I've not seen Melanie for a while, actually, since last summer. But the other four of us, we were at Emma's birthday earlier. this year and it was kind of the most relaxed we've been in each other's company for a long time and I think there's something about turning 50 that is you know you become so reflective don't you and really start to appreciate people in a different way yeah it's a big it's a big milestone is the term um are the spice girls still together that's what i was trying to figure

we've never split up that's what i'm saying yeah jerry left i would like to say she's back now obviously since we did the tour in 2019 But has Victoria left? No one's left. I love it. When people like do, when I'm doing shows and stuff and if people want to introduce me, when they say, former spice girl, I'm really offended. Yeah. Because once a spice girl, always is a spice girl.

I think we all feel like that. There might be times we choose not to work in that arena, but we're still spice girls. Is it like the Rolling Stones where I think they, you know, get together for board meetings, right? Do you have kind of a summit at a regular interval? We don't have them often enough because it's still a business. You know, there are still things we have to take care of, you know. We have our trademark and we have lots of great merch out there, of course. This year's a big anniversary.

Are you going to do anything for the anniversary? We want to. Everything's in discussion. But it's a really positive time for us. Would it be the five of you, do you think? Well, it depends what it is. Maybe a Wembley. That would be nice, wouldn't it?

Right. Yeah. We'll see. There's nothing in the wax, so it's obviously not going to be anything in time for the anniversary, but we are discussing lots of great opportunities. And it's just because it's so precious to us, it's hard to agree on what everyone feels is the right thing,

what they're comfortable with, how we want to approach it. So that's what the constant conversation is about. Did you have rules about who would stand in the middle? No, actually. With choreography, we'd swap. And even when you look at the songs, so we really tried to play to each other's strengths. And we always knew, you know,

if you're familiar with a lot of Spice Girls music, I would often sing the Middle Eight. Emma would often sing verses. There was just like a natural, when we were writing songs with people, we'd kind of know who would work best in that area. You know, we had a few fallout sometimes because someone was being overlooked a little bit.

We tried to keep it equal. And, you know, I know there are lots of bands that have different setups. but even like with publishing and everything we ever did, we split everything equally because another, you know, I praise Simon for that, because that's the only way to keep a bond together. Simon, I gave you that advice.

Yeah, yeah, you have to be equals in the business, right? It's generally acknowledged that you had the best voice. I think that's down to personal taste, isn't it? It's said a lot, and of course it's a compliment, so thank you. Thank you, people. Sometimes I say I was just a show off. used to do the high bits at the end. And everyone can sing.

You know, obviously there was different levels of ability. But there's no one who cannot sing. Everybody brings something. You were the best. According to you. And lots of other people. No, it depends what you like. I'm just being mischievous.

But people did say you were the best. And you were. I'm possibly over-researched. Like I always like to be prepared. So I've read your book. I've listened to your music. I've gone back and I watched Spice World, which I'd never seen before. Really?

Did you? I really enjoyed it. Did you? Yeah. I love that. It's like a panto. It's like a Christmas panto. Sketches, broad comedy, cameo after cameo.

Roger Moore, Richard E. Grant. Michael Barrymore. Gary Glitter. He's been cut out of it. did you know while the movie was getting edited we were like oh shit there's a scene where you say

want to be in my gang which is a banger the devil has the best tunes the man from the music yeah yeah well it was again before we knew that shit

but you can find that on YouTube you can find the outtakes why would you want to with Gary Glitter can you yeah wow I never knew that

speaking of somebody who made a documentary about Jimmy Seville For those who don't know, Gary Glitter was unmasked as a paedophile. And it was a reminder watching the outtakes that, oh, we thought he was harmless, partly because he was already sending himself up. It's like, oh, he's so ridiculous. Yeah.

He's such a cartoon. He doesn't take himself seriously, therefore he's safe. And turned out that was the disguise. But it's funny when you're in the presence of those people, you do feel there. Oh, something's a bit... Did you feel a little something? Well, I met Jimmy as well. Teach you?

Yeah, I did one of the breakfast shows, whether it was GM TV, wherever it was called at the time, and now I was on the sofa next to him, and I was in the lift with him, and he made me feel very uncomfortable. I think he was even a little bit, I mean, he was quite old at the time, but I think he was almost a little bit inappropriate on the air,

you know? When you were there? Yeah, yeah. He was just, well, he was him. Let's not give him any air time. So, back to the question, wannabe, the song. That wasn't the question. No, because it's important because it's about Spice World as well.

This... Have you commandeered? You've taken over the controls. Do you not like that? We were talking about Spice World. Yes. So Spice World... In which the villain, Barry Humphreys...

Yes. ...plays a kind of Rupert Murdoch-like Australian Newsbearing. He's like, I've got to get those Spiceworld. Bice, girls, if it kills me. That's not an exact impression. And the main throughline for the film is that there's this antagonist reporter slash vampire who's coming to try and find dirt on you. Yeah.

So the movie, it was what was going on. You know, obviously a comedic version in the film. But that was really how we were. That was our experiences. You know, we'd been out there. We've been promoting for a year. when we sat down and the movie was being written. So a lot of those experiences that are the throughline of the movie

were the things that we were experiencing. I'm sure, and I'm sure that's partly why it works. Yeah. And it was a big hit. It was a big hit, and it's not on any streaming services currently. I wanted to watch it, and I did watch it, but it was quite a job. Did you watch it on VHS? I think we found a cheeky download somewhere, but it's not available on any streams.

at the moment, it will be, because there was a lot of people that owned it. It was kind of all over the place. So we've had to come together, the Spikes Girls now fully own it, so we are. Yeah, we will be presenting it at some point. And hopefully they're not too distant futures for people to enjoy. So, just from the off, like I said, you took off like a rocket. You conquered not just the UK, but you smashed America. Nevertheless, it wasn't to everyone's tastes.

This will surprise you. There were some music people, industry personnel, or artists who didn't like the spice girls and felt it incumbent to push back and give statements. Leave you got. Bear with me. Go on. Oh, Tom York.

Yeah, yeah. Radiohead, yeah. Said. I can't remember. Tom York from Radiohead said you were the Antichrist. Not you personally, but the Spice Girls collectively. A bit strong, isn't it? I love radio. head.

Shirley, wait, but if you... Shirley Manson from garbage. Wait for this one. I think she's actually kind of spoken about this, maybe recently, or kind of, you know... It's not a good look now. Yeah, she's acknowledged with hindsight.

It feels like a massive overreaction. Okay. In hindsight, you're like, okay, right. So if you think that about spice girls, what do you think about, you know, Hitler? Charlie Manson from garbage said, I want them tarred and feather.

my wish is for the complete and utter destruction of the spice girls. Wow. Liam Gallagher said, if he bumped into the spice girls, he said, agenum. You've got to love the 90s, hey? Funny that that was the level of anger. Yeah. But I think what does that say?

I think that speaks to mainly how big and impregnable you appeared. It was like, no, that's conquering everything and someone needs to fight back. Yeah, I think it was more, it was, we were probably. everything they hated. Because we were the most commercial band probably ever. We had so many sponsorship deals and we were making this shiny pop music.

So yeah, it was just a reaction to them. Literally it wasn't their taste. They hated it and it becoming successful. It was unavoidable. Yeah, but you know... And that first album sold 23 million copies. It's the highest selling album by a girl band of all time. That's amazing, isn't it?

And the thing is that will probably never change now because the industry's a different place. It's not about album sales. That's some sort of meaningless metric now. Early on, you had an incident which you talk about at the 96 Brits Awards where you were just now talking about policing each other. And there was a moment where you were policed by the bandmates. They felt, and it sounds so trivial, you know, looked at in dispassionately,

but you'd taken your hair out so you no longer had a ponytail and this was before you even had released any music but you were at the Brits so you were under scrutiny and your fellow bandmates thought what are you doing you're fucking with the look the look of the band we've all got certain hair that we have and they criticized you and you told one of them to fuck off

and then the next day they all kind of in your telling anyway came on very heavy so telling you that was you out of loud your behavior was disgusting You know, in the telling, it's like not much of an anecdote, but I mention it because you identified as a moment where you clamped up a bit. Like you no longer felt you were completely able to... I went into terror because I thought I was going to lose everything. You know, those dreams as a child, which now were a possibility,

I might have fucked it all up. Because you thought you might be thrown out. And I thought it was very trivial as well. because, okay, to put some more meat on the bones of that evening. So it was the Brits Award in 1996, which fall around February time. So we hadn't released anything. Nobody in the public knew us.

But in the industry, you know, people had started talking. And we were there, Santa Virgin Records, and we were sitting on a table with Lenny Kravitz, which obviously, you know, we were these young girls. This was an amazing night. We had a great night. We had a few champains. We were really, you know, it was the Brits in the 90s, right?

Everyone was having fun. Yeah. And we were just leaving. We were like going to find our car and whatever the situation was where I just turned around and said, Victor, oh, fuck off. Unbeknownst to me, go home, go to bed,

wake up the next morning and I was in a lot of trouble and it was, I was living with Melby at the time. We were living in Watford and Jerry also lived in Watford and they were both there when I got up. And yeah, they were just disgusted with my behaviour.

That was the word that was used we're disgusted. Yeah. It's a strong word. Yeah. And because, you know, you know when you've had a night out and you wake up in the morning and you've got like beer fear, right? You know, I don't know what to do last night. I didn't even have that.

I just woke up going, oh, last night was fun. I had completely brushed off that situation. But obviously it had really affected people in a way I hadn't realised. So I was in trouble. And then Simon wanted to speak to me. And I was told in no uncertain terms if anything ever happened like that again. I would be gone. So that, yeah, I just, that completely freaked me out.

One, because I didn't realize I'd done anything that terribly bad. And two, because my actions may have led to me losing everything I'd ever wanted, you know. So it affected me, you know, a lot. Are you still in business with Simon Fuller? No. Simon Fuller's like the doppelganger not physically but kind of professionally

of Simon Cowell They're very very different people They're very different but they're put together a lot They're both vastly wealthy They work together They worked together They used to work together They fell out over Pop Idol I think

But Simon Cowell is the public one And Simon Fuller is the private one Simon Fuller almost never gives interviews Um Hi Simon if you're watching Hi Simon apparently Simon your management style appeared to be divide and rule yes at the time yes he would he would admit that

do you think so yeah he would admit that and the thing is you know you have to remember this is a very long time ago he was I think only in his 30s which obviously is an adult but none of this had ever happened to anybody involved you know the spice girls was unprecedented what was his track record at that point he managed Annie Lennox right which was one of yeah one of the Amongst other artists, Paul Harcastle, his business was called 19. Because he, that was his first big. Because of Paul Hardcastle's song, No, No, No, 19.

Exactly. So, yeah, that kind of set him on the road. I think he started in A&R and then he moved to management. And, yeah, he was managing lots of various acts. He managed Amy Winehouse for a short period of time. Fuller did. I think, yeah. Then after the Spice Girls, he went on to do S Club 7.

But the Spice Girls was this crazy entity. And I think the label, the management, everyone was a bit like, fuck what do we do with it and everyone was terrified of us kind of imploding because we were so volatile we just were that is the spice girls we love each other

but when there's a fallout it's catastrophic you know so I think everyone was just trying to keep it going but it was the it was the wrong thing to do what should he have done I think supported

our togetherness and our friendship, because when we are on the same page, we're unstoppable. That is the only way the Spice Girls works. But sometimes I think, and this, you'll know this, right, historically through music. When they're infiltrated, when an act or an artist is infiltrated from an outside influence, then it goes to shit. You know, our power is in our unity. Right. It always was, and it still is.

But I think that was always his, I believe that was his thought process. Keep them separate, keep them all. Because he'd tell us like different things to each other. And it just caused a little bit of unrest. And yeah, I do believe it was his way of trying to keep control of the beast. But it backfired on him. And we left him. You say of that time, I started to consciously make myself smaller.

My confidence began to be stripped away and it happened so quick. It is difficult. You earlier, you know, talked about other girl and boy bands and their stories. And it is bizarre because your life completely changes. It's unrecognisable. And the media at that time were brutal, the tabloid media, especially here in the UK. And we were, you know, when you're young, you're naive, you don't think about the negatives. So I didn't think about the negatives.

I was just like, we're making music, we're having fun, everybody's going to love us. And then it was like, oh, shit, that's not life. That's not real life. So you're dealing with all of these opinions of you that you weren't ready for. It's before social media. Yeah. And it's before the internet was the internet. So it's mainly tabloids, is it?

Is it easier to tune that out? At least it's not on your phone, right? Well, how are you seeing? See, I would disagree. I think because at the time as well, I personally, I was obsessed. I was obsessed with what everyone was saying about me. So I'd go to the gym every morning. The first thing I'd do would go to the newsstand and look in the, you know, the gossip columns

or the, you know, the entertainment, whatever, in the newspapers, yeah. And just check it, I should have this, and the other thing was, we were told that anything we ever did would get found out. So we were always living in fear. So if we'd ever gone out and had a drunken night or whatever or, you know, met somebody, you were just like, when's it going to be in the paper? Because you knew it was going to come out

because we just knew that was just the way it was. Now we know why and how. Go on. But at the time. Now we know why. Because our phones were, you know, being hacked. And I've done the case. I've been through the whole thing.

It started in 1996. It ended in 2009. So One of you came out in 1990. and I had my daughter in 2009. So myself and every other person in the public eye in the United Kingdom was, you know, was being listened to throughout that period. Do you know who was hacking your phone? I think it was a number of people.

Which newspapers? It was more than one publication. News of the world? The one that I've been to court with is at the Sun and News of the World. Yeah. What about the mirror? Those proceedings have come to a halt. Why?

I think it's just been too long. I was never notified. People were notified by the police, and I never got that call. So I just left it. Do you think, as well... Do you think Piers Morgan was involved? I wouldn't like to say.

You're good at your job and I'm good at mine. Would you hold it against... If it was true of Piers Morgan, let's say, would you, like, be interviewed by him? Like, you feel like, no. I, I've met peers. I'm not a fan. I'd choose to not have an interview with him.

Yeah. Because of that period? I, when I was young with the Spice Girls, part of the process of becoming a successful band is speaking to lots and lots of journalists. And at the time, you know, in many ways, the tabloids broke us, you know. and we do have this thing. Do you mean in a positive way? Yeah, well, in both ways. But yeah, they were very important at the time.

Like you say, we didn't have social media. Now, it's a wonderful thing. Well, they've lost so much of their power because we do have social media. But I don't need to speak to tabloids. I don't want to. It doesn't sell records. And, you know, I've learnt my lessons.

Presenting the counter narrative, it would be, well, it was a tango. and that there was this sort of somewhat symbiotic dimension to it. I learned quite quickly that I'm not comfortable with that aspect of fame. You know, this whole like, you belong to the tabloids or you belong to the media. You know, you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. I want to make music. I want to be on stage.

I want to perform. I don't want to be in the newspaper. Do you know what I mean? It's like, yeah, it's going to sell records. It's important. If I'm promoting things, then I realize I have to toe the line to a point. But I'm not, I've never wanted to, you know, fuck me, I'm one of the Spice Girls, right? One of the most written bands in history.

I've never felt the need to exploit myself to that point because I feel like you're dancing with the devil, right? It's, for me, I never felt comfortable with that. And I feel really grateful because I've had my issues with the tabloid, but I don't think I've ever given them enough that I owe them. Was there a, you know, with some of these gold bands and boy bands, there's an especially painful moment. Like, Lee from Blue famously said something about 9-11 right after the planes had gone into the World Trade Center. Do you remember that? No.

He said something along the lines of, yeah, but a lot of whales are being killed as well, and no one talks about that. Something like that. Gosh. Eek. Which obviously he didn't mean it vindictively, but it was, it didn't come out. things sometimes. And famously, Brian Harvey, he says he takes 19ies on a night.

I shouldn't joke about it. Be serious. Come on. The thing you say that kind of, yeah, before cancel culture was a thing. Well, it turns out it was a cancel culture even then, but they didn't call it that. And he was canceled for saying on a night out, he likes to take, I don't know what the number was. It was more than your recommended daily allowance. What's the recommended daily allowance? I think you like, I think one a week. week is considered.

One and a half. Maybe a one a week sounds like too much. Once every few months, if you're a pop star. The prescription can change varied on your level of success and your tolerances. Did you have a spice girl's? This is a really low road question, even as I'm saying. But it felt like you didn't have a moment of scandal like that, right? It wasn't as though one of the you once said, I'm in favor of public execution or something.

I mean, Jerry said she liked Margaret Thatcher. Yeah, that was the one that sprung to my mind. So, obviously, again, being young and being thrown to the lions, as we were, we didn't have media training. Yeah. Which, I mean, I'm sure, obviously, a lot of listeners would be like what about that. Compared to saying I like to take 19 E's in a night, saying you like Margaret Thatcher, and she said she was the original spice girl,

and she had girl power. Didn't she say that, something like that? She did say that. So we were interviewed by Spectator, what the actual. Spectator magazine, really. I didn't even know what Spectator was. It's a right-leaning political magazine. Yeah.

So why are a pop band being, why? Who set that up? What the fuck? Anyway. Was that one of Simon's brainwaves? But, you know, obviously we were five very different individuals with different experiences growing up, predominantly working class. But, you know, there's predominantly left-leaning.

But obviously, Margaret Thatcher, she was a, you know, Even saying the name, kind of fills me with dread. She was a, you know, was she the first female prime minister? She did what she did. And, you know, and Jerry applauded that and her being female. And those, you know, the girl power references were there for that reason. I grew up in the northwest of England. My whole family are from Liverpool.

My, my dad's out of the family, the men have worked on the docks, or they did work on the docks for generations. Obviously, that was very difficult for me because that was not my opinion. I think that was one of the things that was hard about the Spice Girls is that we could get tired with the same brush. If somebody had an opinion, a political opinion,

everyone would think that's what everybody thought and felt. And it wasn't the case. I mean, people know that now, but being a young girl going back to Liverpool, it's like, oh, the Spice Girls, I've said this. it's just like, shit. I didn't say it. I don't think it.

You did an interview with Oprah. I mean, I've already said this, but just a reminder that the Spice Girls cracked America wide open, which for a UK girl group or boy group was, I want to say, if not unprecedented, then highly unusual and certainly unprecedented in the scale of domination that you kind of achieved. So you're on Oprah and you say that the next day you looked at yourself in a mirror while on the treadmill and you said, you've just got to be a robot, no feelings, no excuses, no pain, you're a robot. That was a little mantra that I had.

And that kind of, you touched on a couple of things like the catalysts that led to that point. So obviously being criticised about my appearance. By who? Well, the first person, the first, like, little thing that cut deep was when Chick, Chick Murphy. The original backer, a financial backer of the band, had commented on my thighs when doing a backflip, and that hurt. And I was like, oh, fuck, okay, I need to lose weight. And then really being scrutinized by other people, Table of Media, predominantly, but also by myself. You know, you're in photo shoots.

your image, you're looking at your image constantly. And I think as well, I had like a lot of guilt for my success and I don't know why, but I kind of didn't feel worthy for it. And I think I talk about this in the book as well. It's like, you know, I did grow up in an environment where people work really hard and can have very physical, difficult jobs. And I was starting to earn money. that they would never see in a lifetime.

And, you know, I had guilt about that. And so I was like, I have to be, to be worthy of this success, I have to be perfect. I have to be the absolute best version of myself. And, yeah, I became really insular. And I was controlling what I was eating. I was exercising obsessively. I was really kind of withdrawing from the band as well

because I was really embarrassed about it. I knew I had an eating disorder, but I wouldn't acknowledge it. I wouldn't, I was kind of in denial. There was like a little voice, but I quieten that voice constantly. So that was the thing, you're a robot. Because I loved, and I love being a spice girl so much, and I love performing. And this was all of my dreams come true. Talking to Oprah Winfrey, we were performing at Madison Square Garden,

we were flying to Tokyo. It was mind-blowing, and I could not fuck it up because I nearly did at one point. So just all of these little things like came together and just made me like, you know, very, very guarded. It's a lot, isn't it? I interviewed Jade from Little Mix for the podcast, and her observation was that it gets harder as you get more successful. Like it's when you, it's almost like on the way up, it's a bit more straightforward. And then when you're actually... And it's more fun.

And when you're, when you sort of reach the top of the mountain, for some reason. Yeah, pressure responsibilities. Sense of impending failure, like obsolescence, like how do we, like this? Like, I've got to maintain it now. And how do you maintain that level of success? Yeah. Well, it's funny because I kind of just want to reflect on my personal experience of being a spice girl. And at the time, I didn't ever really feel like the most.

popular one. You know, I feel like I was treated quite, they were quite mean to me in the media. There was, obviously, doing the phone hacking stuff, I had to go through all of the articles that were written about me and the narrative around me was, you know, I, I suffered after my like time with the Spice Girls in that Spice many days and into my solo career. So it's probably after I toured my first solo record. I had a very difficult time. I, you know, I had a lot of demons I had to face. What year are we talking? So this was millennium. Are we talking about your eating disorder? So eating disorder and I was diagnosed with depression, you know, I was suffering with anxiety, it was hard to leave the house. It was, it was a really, really dark time. So I went over to

LA and I did a three month stint there writing, recording my first seller record. It was the first time I'd stepped away from the band. I'd allowed myself to admit I had a problem and I had to do something about it. So that was the first time I sought help and was trying to deal with my eating disorders and my addiction to exercise. I was just trying to get some kind of balance in my life, but still controlling everything. And that worked to a point having someone to cook all of my meals, to have a personal trainer. So I was literally giving other people the responsibility. I couldn't have those responsibilities myself. Did you have a manager at this time? I did. So, When we left Simon Fuller, I think it was in 98, we then had a manager, Nancy Phillips,

was someone I stayed with for 18 years. And she was Spice Girls, but also you individually? Yes. All of us individually for the first record. Obviously, Jerry had already gone. Jerry left under her watch. And then, yeah, we all released a solo album. And then I continue to say with her.

Each of you individually released solo records. Yeah. Yeah. So all the Spice Girls have released a solo record. That must have been weird when you're all thinking, like, I wonder how their one is doing. Yeah. is hard because you know you want to be supportive but you also feel competitive um so that was all going on but i was you know trying to figure shit out for myself and then once i wasn't in that environment

when i had all of the things in place from being you know i i was anorexic for sure i mean i wasn't starving myself but i was really restricting my eating and over exercising i was underweight but then my body just took over and I started binging. Sometimes uncontrollably to the point where I would become conscious kind of mid-bing and just think like, what the hell am I doing? Yeah, and it was petrifying and I'd always been... At night? Yeah, at night, I'd wake up and I'd just be like, I'd just want carbs.

And I went on to learn that a lot of this are the symptoms of depression. Waking up early hours of the morning, going to the kitchen, like self-soothing with carbs, to the point of like, you know, being able to sleep again. And of course, my appearance was changing. And that was my biggest fear, because I knew, I knew it was going to be commented on. You know, I knew that the tabloids were going to be really, really mean about it. And I was so embarrassed and I was so ashamed because I prided myself on my control and on my determination. And I'd created this, the perfection, or as close to the perfection as I could possibly get,

to be worthy of this pop stardom. and then I was losing it. I was losing grip of this control. But it was my body reacting, going, I can't continue in this way. I'm so grateful that my body kind of saved me in a sense. So it was around 2000 when I was like crying, constantly, struggling to get out of bed.

I was still promoting and touring my first album. I was becoming more and more uncomfortable, you know, gaining more and more weight. And that's when I first went to, my GP and that's when he said to me, well, first of all, we need to address your depression. And I just, that felt like a weight lifted off, like physically a weight lifted off my shoulders because it had a name, you know, I knew it was something I could be helped with. And that was the start on the road to recovery. I mean, sometimes depression comes from nowhere, right? It's just

like catching any other disease, or sometimes it's related to things that you're going through. Yes. You had gone through this extraordinary passage of your life, right? Yeah. In which you'd been in control but out of control, enormous success but enormous pressure. It's hard to believe that it didn't have something role in what you were going through, right? Yeah.

You know, I think all of us, Spice Girls, have had things we've had to deal with because it's not normal. It's not, even people now when I'm working with them, they're like, your life's just not normal. just the way you work, you know, the expectation of a performer. You get up on stage in front of tens of thousands of people and then you go home and empty the dishwasher, and it's a massive head fuck, you know. But that's life and I've kind of, I have more of a handle on it now

because I've done it for such a long time, but then it was the extreme because it was Spice Girls fame and then being on my own. And I think a lot of the control issues were because my life was in the hands of other people. So it was the only things I could control was my appearance, what I ate, how much I exercised. And also my gym was like my hideaway because I hate confrontation.

And, you know, there was times in the band where it was very confrontational. People had different personalities in that respect. So if I was in the gym, I got left alone. So I would spend more and more time in the gym. It was my safe place. And yeah, and this is where I talk about the reintegration into society. Because those spice years, like 96 to 90s, we hardly were in public.

You know, we were in a bubble. We had security. You're on a plane. You're on a private jet. You know, you're on stage. You're not living like a normal human being. You had a flat in Finchley, did you? I did.

But you probably weren't there that much. Not really. Were you able to date? That's another hot topic, isn't it? I would have liked to have dated. I had a dry spell. That's what we call it. No.

I think it was in the band. Because Robbie talks about how Nigel Martin Smith, Robbie Williams of Take That, talks a lot about Nigel Martin Smith sort of policed their... He didn't want girlfriends. Nigel denies that, but Robbie says that Nigel stopped them from getting any action. Yeah, well, I think he's made up for it, don't you?

I didn't realize you'd had a thing with Robbie. I mean, it was a million years ago and lasted two seconds. Oh, God, that sounds really bad. Oh, well. He was a mess. I was a mess. It broke my heart. That was your quote.

Yeah. And Jay from five. Yeah. Lovely Jay. He, I've not spoken to him for a while, actually, but he's an ex I've remained friends with. I don't remain friends in many exes, but he's a lovely boy. And I saw Robbie recently. I mean, God, we were kids.

Do you know what I mean? It's like, we're talking like, you know, 20 odd years ago. Nearly 30 years ago, it's a long time. But, no, but I think a lot of managers, they did that, you know, you weren't allowed to come out if you're in a boy band, probably, or a girl band, because you had to remain available to the fans. That was the thing, wasn't it? Did you have boys outside the hotels queuing up? It's completely different. Yeah, we didn't have, I mean, don't get me wrong. Other people had a better success rate than I did, but it wasn't that kind of, you know, like historically

with like boy bands or rock bands, it's like, oh, you know, bring her back. Yeah. We've got a special guy and he picks them out and says, do you want to meet the band? Yeah, our gigs weren't like that. No. They were full of young girls and gays, which are the best audience. You just don't get any action. But, you know, that wasn't, you know,

it was quite lonely for me at times. I think there was many times in the band when we were working together where I was the only one without a partner. So, yeah, that's been quite a big theme of my adult life, really. It was a long time before I was in a long-term relationship, So was that part of what led to the depression?

I guess that's where we were going. Yeah, I think it was very environmental. It was the experiences that I'd had. And yeah, just getting to that point where, yeah, I couldn't continue living the way I was living. And that was a really long road back to health. And I never really stopped. It was a different time as well,

because I probably, I think I would have benefited to go off. and have some time to heal. But I was still, I was touring and promoting. Your solo stuff. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Let's talk about your solo music. Yeah.

One of the pleasures prepping this interview was realizing how good it is. And also that the recent stuff's really strong. Thank you. I think you've sort of found your mode, especially with like the last album and then this new material. I haven't heard all the new album. It's called Sweat. But that kind of, I mean, how would you describe the music?

Well, I started DJing about eight years ago and I play house music like multi-genre house but as an artist obviously I'm a pop artist but I wanted to bring those worlds closer together and also it's just brought so much joy to my life being out there DJing as well as singing live that I wanted to reflect that in the music so I've just had loads of fun

and try to make and you're right I feel like it's a genre put a label on it Well, it's electronic pop dance, I suppose. With a bit of disco? A bit of disco in there, definitely. It feels like the single, what's the single called? So we've got sweat. Sweat where it's taking a bit of Diana Ross.

Yes. And some Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yes. So explain that. Okay, so whenever I make music, it's a reflection of what's been going on in my life over the period of time that I'm making the record, right? Right. And this is interesting this album because I was fresh from a long-term relationship breaking up. So I was in like the, you know, the untangling of all the things, the bitterness, the anger.

Is this the bar of your... No, no, no, that was, that was 2012. Yeah, that was way back. So this was the one after that. And that was all falling apart, untangling, getting nasty, bitterness. It's great inspiration for music. How do you know when a relationship's not working? I think when you're not happy anymore, when the icks are too big to ignore.

Ix are part of a long-term relationship. No, just getting to the point where you just think, this is too much like hard work. You know, there's no joy here. So that is reflected in the music, but then I met somebody new and I fell in love. And I'm like, so I had this like beautiful breadth of human emotion, right, that I was able to draw upon. And so I had this great body of work working with incredible songwriters, producers.

I really knew what I wanted to achieve, really have such a good dance feel. And pulling from different genres of dance as well, you know, because I know I can't go like super specialist in any direction. I'm a pop artist. I write pop songs. But it's just having those flavors and making it feel more like. the music I want to play and dance doing a club. So sweat just to finally answer your question about Arnie. It was at a moment I was really happy with the work I had for the record and I wanted to have some fun. I've been working on a playlist, a fitness playlist and that, rich two, three, four, five, six, seven,

eight, Dan Ross, worked that body. That sounded great, by the way. Thank you. I was really eager to get that into a tune. I thought, I want to make like a fitness banger. I want to have loads of fun. So I was looking at all these intsos through my life as a kid. I grew up on the kids from fame, flash dance. I was thinking about Olivia Newton-John. Let's get physical.

And so we had this hook from the Diana Ross track. And looking at all these inspoes and I just remembered, I was on this fitness camp once. And they played, so Arnold Schwarzenegger around the pumping guy in time, he made these albums where it was like bangers like, It's raining men, but he's like literally doing the workout over it, like it's bicep curls. And so we were looking at that and just having loads of fun. And I was like, it's time to bring the fun to this record.

And sweat was made and it felt like the perfect introduction to this body of work. He did compliment my guns once. Did he? It's one of my claims of fame, yeah. What was the location? I was at the Royal Albert Hall and it was Gorbachev's 80th birthday celebrations. Wow, what is a double name drop. We didn't go anywhere near those.

Can you imagine the ridiculous, I mean, you know, I know you've had some of those moments too, but ridiculous dreams you find yourself in. Right, right, right, when you're suddenly... I don't think I've rubbed shoulders with either Arnie or Gorbachev. Did you meet Gorbachev? I didn't actually. I was asked to perform. I think one of his mother, his daughter, his wife, somebody was a big fan.

So I was asked to perform at his birthday. The Spice Girls' Encounter with Nelson Mandela, Obviously is legendary. Did you remember what he said? He said it was the best day of his life in meeting the Spice Girls. Amazing. I mean, almost...

I don't think he really meant it. Almost of too much. Yeah. Let's not overdo it. Yeah, do you think he meant to... Not freedom of your country or be released from prison? That was such a beautiful moment. Obviously, I mean, what an honour to have met the man.

And whenever Spice Girls did those things, because I think, you know, people will remember the photographs with Charles when he was Prince, you know, the bottom pinch and the lipstick marks and all of those things. And it was... Well, help people. The younger crowd might not know. Okay. Set the scene. Well, I think it was about 1997 and the Spice Girls were performing at a Prince's Trust concert. I have a feeling we were in Manchester. And there's always a royal lineup at these things for all of the artists performing on the show. and you get given the protocol.

Like when you meet a member of the royal family, you wait to be spoken to, you wait, you don't take their hand, you wait for them to offer their hand to you, with the queen you used to curtsy, and there's all of this stuff. But obviously, being the spice girls, we always thought it was very funny to do what we were told not to do.

And Jerry thought she'd give him a little pat on the bum and kiss him. She'd put so much red lipstick on, and those photographs are icon. And in all honesty... So she would have known that she was going to leave a mark on him. Yeah. Yeah.

It was premeditated for sure. But we were just being rebellious. The thing is with the Spice Girls, right? We're so relatable because we were normal girls from normal backgrounds that did something extraordinary. And we really pride ourselves on that. So when we found ourselves in those situations, other people might not find themselves. We wanted to do what everybody else wanted to do, you know? I know they're going to kick us out.

But before they do, are the Spice Girls in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? No. Not yet. But you would qualify, I think. Do you think? Because there's a 25 year, you have to wait. There's some kind of waiting period. Do you think there's still some sense of industry gatekeeping or whatever you want to call it or feeling that actually, no, that's not purely music. It's more of a cultural movement.

There we go. That's a good way of putting it. What do you think? Yeah. I don't know. It's interesting. I think as time passes, people become more respectful of what we achieved. And the music speaks for itself. It's bloody good music. You know, it's great pop music that has stood the test of time. And alongside that, it was a cultural movement. And it's affected not only a generation of people. It continues to do that. And I'm extraordinarily proud to be a part of it. And we'll, you know, go around talking about it till the end. of my days. That was a good way of closing out the conversation. Thanks so much, Melanie C, for coming along.

Thank you, my pleasure. It was really fun. And who would have thought all those years ago when I first saw Wannaby that I'd be one day interviewing a Spice Girl? There you go. And a zigazig, ah! Which is, of course, a quote from Wannaby. It's Mel B's signature noise.

And do you know what it means? I found that out in researching the chat. Do you know what Ziggasig R means? I think it's like the noise of orgasm. So you might want to double check that. That's awkward. Piers Morgan, oh, here we go. This is illegal. Ahuga! That's a legal claxon. Pierce Morgan has vehemently denied ever hacking a phone or any knowledge of phone hacking occurring during his time as editor of the mirror. Nevertheless, in his book he does talk someone showing him how to hack a phone. So don't say that, Millie says. But he has never hacked a phone. He's always denied hacking a phone. He doesn't know how to do it. But he did say how to do it in his book. He said he didn't say how to do it if he said he was shown how to do it. But don't say that.

Now, Brian Harvey, I've done Brian Harvey a disservice. I think I said that he'd said at the height of E-17's fame, he would take. 19 E's in a night. In fact, he only said that he'd take 12 E's in a night. So apologies to Brian Harvey. And on a serious note, they threw Brian under the bus, basically. You can learn more about this in boy bands forever. If you're in the UK and you want to watch it on IPlayer.

Brian Harvey, the lead singer of E.17, there's a plausible scenario that suggests their manager at the time, had it in for Brian and more or less sabotaged him. by knowing that he was going to say something self-cancelling in an interview and allowing him to do the interview unschaperoned. Girl Bands Forever is on IPlayer as well. Mel C's not in it, alas. There are no spice goals in Girl Bands Forever, but we have the All Saints, Atomic Kitten, Eternal and many others. What else?

Check out the new music. are genuinely, if you like Daff Punk or it's a shimmering disco, it's the kind of music, I don't know if this is, if you were in a club, could be a gay club, doesn't have to be late at night, maybe you are feeling energetic and it's one or two in the morning and you just want to be wearing like a little vest. Am I painting a bit too much? and you want to dance with your fists in the air I know you're thinking that's not you Louis maybe it is

that's what I was feeling when I was listening to Melsey's album what's the album called sweat the album's called sweat and who doesn't love the idea of Arnold Schwarzenegger being a musical influence I mean that's some clickbait right there if you've been affected by the topics discussed in this episode Spotify do have a website for information and resources.

Visit Spotify.com slash resources. That's it for this week, apart from the credits. The producer was Millie Chu, the assistant producer was Mark Morn, the production manager was Francesca Bassett. The music in this series was by Miguel Di Olivera. The executive producer was Aaron Fellows. This is a Mindhouse Studios production for Spotify. And a zig-a-zig-ah.