Why Ginger has lost her spice
Luke Peterson
Why Ginger has lost her spice
by Angela Mollard
Daily Mail
When the United Nations' grandly titled Population Fund Goodwill Ambassador
set off for the Philippines to discuss birth control earlier this week, you
had to pinch yourself to remember this was a former topless model who used
to dance in a cage for punters at a Majorcan nightclub.
But if Geri Halliwell thought she had finally become a woman of substance,
she was in for a rude surprise when she arrived at Manila Airport.
Uncharacteristically, her flight with Philippine Airlines (PAL) - referred
to locally as Plane Always Late - arrived a few minutes early and there was
no welcome committee to meet her.
After pacing the deserted arrivals hall - which, in another life, would have
been full of screaming fans - she furiously strode outside and hailed a taxi
to take her to her hotel.
Eventually the UN representatives turned up and, discovering their new
ambassador had already left, they raced to the hotel, overtaking Geri on the
way, to be there to greet her.
For an international pop star, it was an ignominious introduction to her new
role and one which was to set the tone for the rest of her visit.
As she toured the slums promoting family planning, instead of engendering
goodwill Geri came under attack from the country's Roman Catholic leaders,
who denounced her 'immoral methods of population control'. One prominent
priest went on to accuse her of blasphemy after seeing the video for her
single Look At Me, in which she dresses up as a nun.
Any hopes Geri might have had of seeking solace at the Shangri La Hotel were
also dashed. A series of phone calls back to Britain confirmed her worst
fears: despite a £2 million promotional campaign, her debut solo album had
flopped, selling only 35,000 copies in its first week compared with the
329,000 shifted by Boyzone.
Embarrassingly the album, called Schizophonic, struggled to just No. 4 in
the charts, behind an Abba compilation and an offering by little-known
country singer Shania Twain.
For many pop stars this would still be considered a success. But for Geri,
who enjoyed a string of No. 1 hits with the Spice Girls, poor album sales
and a single which mustered only second place in the charts will be deeply
disappointing. Not least because she's been robbed of the chance to jeer at
her former Spice sisters: 'I told you so!'
To flounder in one new role is unfortunate, to fail in two is a disaster. So
what has gone wrong for the artist formerly known as Ginger Spice?
The truth is that the woman who was once one of our most charismatic young
stars now cuts a sad and lonely figure, rattling around her £2 million home
and publicly admitting that not only is she without a boyfriend but she
hasn't got any friends.
The voluptuous, street-smart broad who bombarded us with Girl Power has
reinvented herself, but hardly into someone a ten-year-old would idolise.
Part Princess Diana, part Mother Teresa and part Gwyneth Paltrow, she is
intent on looking serious but succeeds only in looking bland.
'People aren't buying her records because they don't know who they're
buying,' says a music industry insider.
'All the re-imaging is confusing for fans. They fell in love with the loud,
big-breasted, brassy girl and now they're being asked to accept this
thoughtful UN representative.
'Just when they got used to that, she's back flashing her breasts again on
the front of her album. There are just too many contradictions.'
Geri is proud there is 'nothing fake' about the way she looks, but what she
doesn't understand is that it was the fake we loved. Any PR girl can wear
prim cardies, but it takes inspiration and self-belief to adapt a Union Jack
tea-towel into a dress.
For a generation of young girls, Geri was proof that if you wanted something
badly enough, you could get it. Born in Watford, she'd had to make do with
hand-me-downs because her cardealer father had been in a car accident and
the family of five had to exist on his sickness benefit. Her mother took a
cleaning job to pay the bills, but the pressure became too great and the
couple split.
After leaving school at 16, Geri went to college for a year, worked briefly
for a video company then left in pursuit of the fame she had craved since
childhood. She appeared in a couple of pop videos and predictably fell into
glamour modelling.
Years later, when the Spice Girls took off, dozens of pictures of Geri
surfaced revealing her topless, pouting and clearly desperate for
recognition.
After her nightclub-dancing stint in Majorca, she went to Turkey to be a
game-show hostess But while she was there her father died, leaving her
bereft of the one person she had truly loved.
Back in England, she spotted an audition notice for a new girl band. By
1995, Ginger Spice was on her way to superstardom and a fortune estimated at
£13 million.
It took nearly a decade for Geri to find fame but less than a year to
transform her into a global campaigner.
She started by auctioning her Spice outfits for a children's charity, then
became an active spokeswoman for Breast Cancer Awareness and a figure-head
for Comic Relief. Eventually someone at the UN had a jolly idea that Geri
might make an ambassador.
Her desire to use her fame to help others is honourable but - as was
recently revealed by the camera charting her preparations for a UN
briefing - she is woefully uninformed about the issues. 'I was going to say
I'm pro-life,' she giggled, 'but I've just found out that's the name of an
anti-abortion group.'
Pop impresario Tom Watkins - who has managed the Pet Shop Boys, Bros and
East 17 - thinks Geri's UN role is preposterous. 'Here's a girl who sold
herself as a pair of boobs and now she's asking to be taken seriously. It's
embarrassing,' he sneers.
Following her departure from the Spice Girls, Geri hired a string of new
advisers to handle everything from her image to finances and new projects.
She installed Lisa Anderson, who used to produce the Brit Awards, as her new
manager (they've since gone their separate ways), and Chris Briggs, the EMI
executive behind Robbie Williams's success, as her music guru.
Kenny Ho, a 24-year-old designer wunderkind, was hired as a style assistant
and shopping companion, while Freud Communications, which looks after Chris
Evans, took over her publicity.
Yet it seems it is Geri's reluctance actually to listen to the advice she is
given which is the reason behind her flop in the charts.
Intriguingly, it was her choice - against her record company's misgivings -
to release her single and then her album head-to-head with Boyzone. As one
music critic points out: 'Boyzone are notorious for being unstoppable. Oasis
wouldn't go head to head with them; neither would the Spice Girls or Robbie
Williams.'
Why was Geri so reckless? EMI's Chris Briggs is diplomatic: 'I think she
wanted the challenge. If any artist puts their foot down about a release
date, we have to go with their wishes.'
Her failure to listen to others has cost Geri dear. Says one music insider:
'It's difficult to make chicken soup out of chicken droppings, but if anyone
could have it was Chris Briggs. But artists have to listen. Robbie Williams
was the most talented member of Take That but he still took direction, and
look where he is now. Unfortunately the dye is cast for Geri. It'll be
tricky to turn her career around.'
Others believe she is more talented than her chart upset suggests and that
her second single, released in August, will re-establish her credibility. In
the meantime, she is proof there is such a thing as too much hype.
Publishers of her forthcoming autobiography, If Only, are becoming
increasingly concerned at the number of interviews she has given -
particularly since newspapers are not bidding heavily for serialisation
rights. Had she agreed to write about her rocky days with the Spice Girls,
it would have been a guaranteed best-seller - but who wants a 26-year-old's
self-conscious navel-gazing?
Likewise, there is little interest from film producers. Geri auditioned for
the part of a baddie in the new James Bond movie but failed to impress; and
though she is said to be desperate to play the title role in the film of
Bridget Jones's Diary, insiders say it is unlikely she will get the part.
So how is she coping with life after Spice and what will eventually happen
to the girl who has never wanted anything but fame?
Her aunt, Maria Victoria Hidalgo, who lives in the Spanish town of Huesca,
near the Pyrenees, admits her family was anxious when Geri left the Spice
Girls.
'I was concerned about her to start with but now we're all very proud,
especially as she has established herself in her own right. You must
remember, she's a very determined girl who will succeed,' she says.
Yet viewers who saw Molly Dineen's recent documentary, giving an insight
into Geri's life post-Spice, would have come to one conclusion: sad. Geri
came across as an unhappy, deeply self-doubting creature alone in her
enormous Berkshire home. Her 18-acre property is surrounded by security
cameras and her only company is a dog called Harry.
George Michael, who sheltered her in the days after her departure from the
Spice Girls, made a brief appearance in the film, but whether or not it was
the cameras, he looked awkward in her company.
Indeed, one of the most telling lines in the documentary was when Geri
confessed to Dineen why she had asked her to follow her round with a camera.
'I was desperate for company so I thought I'd make you my friend, Molly,'
Geri said. 'I'm sorry but you've been fished in by a lonely old person.'
Dineen, stylish and highly respected, was not the only 'big sister' Geri
turned to after she went it alone. One of the first people to receive a call
was journalist Justine Picardie, whose sister, Ruth, died from breast
cancer.
Geri, who had found a lump in her own breast at the age of 18, had been
deeply touched by Ruth's book, Before I Say Goodbye, and wanted to know how
she could help to raise money for charity.
Justine recalls: 'A lot of people wanted to get to know me after Ruth's book
came out so I was quite cynical, but she was really true and honest. I went
to meet her at George Michael's home in the South of France, not knowing
what to expect, but despite being so vulnerable and fragile, what came
through was this genuine emotion. I couldn't help but be touched by it.'
Justine was one of four mothers Geri recently invited to her home. Dawn
French, whom Geri met through Comic Relief, was there with her daughter, as
were Molly Dineen and her daughter, Emma Freud and her two children, and
Justine with her two and a friend of her son.
Geri gave the children a tour of her bedroom, with its en-suite whirlpool
bath, and showed them how to do a headstand. According to Justine, her
nine-year-old had always been disinterested in Geri but left smitten.
'She's fantastic with children and genuinely engages with them, maybe
because she's got this very child-like quality herself,' Justine says. 'She
really talked to them and listened to them, and at the end she was waltzing
round her enormous living-room with them.'
However, when the children went home Geri was left alone - again. She hasn't
had a proper boyfriend for five years and refuses to have flings for fear
the men will kiss and tell. Besides, as she acknowledges, it would hinder
her pursuit of fame.
One of her few remaining friends from Watford, Janine Rayner, is blunt: 'She
would be happier if she lived on a farm with a husband and two kids, but
it's not going to happen.'
Those who have observed Geri with George Michael believe he would be the
perfect partner . . . if only he wasn't gay.
Says one person who's seen them together: 'They've got similar backgrounds -
both came from humble origins and both have had to deal with the loss of a
parent they were particularly close to. They're very affectionate and
supportive of each other.'
So where will Geri end up? Despite some claims that she is over-exposed,
next week brings another round of promotional work, with TV appearances in
the U.S. The week after it's more of the same in Europe. Yet as Tom Watkins
puts it: 'What else is she going to do - open a video shop in Ilford?'
When Geri quit the Spice Girls, she vowed: 'I'll be back!' And yes, she has
returned. But for how long is anyone's guess.
Article:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/dynamic/lifestyle/review.html?in_review_id=148
816&in_review_text_id=120893
Dodo
> Geri said. 'I'm sorry but you've been fished in by a lonely old person.'
>
No adma! don't say it!
Qapla'
Dodo
--
The Anti-Mel G-site http://members.xoom.com/austin_spice/melb/
Amy Hodgetts
Luke Peterson wrote in message
<5K_a3.13039$PN5....@newsfeeds.bigpond.com>...
image given 2 her by the Spice Girls.
Amy
oce
> >I think that Geri is now showing us what she is really like, and not the
> image given 2 her by the Spice Girls.
>
> Amy
too bad the spice girls didn't give her anything. "ginger spice" was a creation
of hte people who put the group together, and she accepted. odd how since she's
left the spice girls her antics have changed little.
--
"ur just jealouse"
kill the new judas: geri halliwell
ad...@interlog.com
> Likewise, there is little interest from film producers. Geri auditioned for
> the part of a baddie in the new James Bond movie but failed to impress; and
> though she is said to be desperate to play the title role in the film of
> Bridget Jones's Diary, insiders say it is unlikely she will get the part.
Darn
Cheesed Off at Cheesy Photo Sessions Spice
"Luke Peterson" <Nel...@bigpond.com> wrote:
>Embarrassingly the album, called Schizophonic, struggled to just No. 4 in
>the charts, behind an Abba compilation and an offering by little-known
>country singer Shania Twain.
If Shania Twain is little known in the UK, then y'all across the pond can
count yourself lucky. One can hardly turn on a country station over here
without hearing this no-talent hack.
Shania should stick to posters and calendars and forget about records.
ObAMSG: Yeah, I know, I know.
ObAFGH: Number 4 ain't too shabby. Sounds like somebody's got it in for
Geri.
- --
------=======<[ Cheesed Off at Cheesy Photo Sessions Spice ]>=======------
PGP public key at http://www.smart.net/~rchason/pubkey.asc
Delenda est Windoze!
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