When the Spice Girls lived together in their modest semi in Maidenhead, before they achieved pop stardom, they would speak endlessly about misogyny in the music industry. Repeatedly told that they wouldn’t get on the cover of magazines because ‘women don’t sell’, or being spoken to rudely by male record label bosses, they grew more and more angry.
They would, I’m told, spend evenings discussing how they could change the world to make it a better place for women and girls.
It was during one of those conversations, in fact, that they coined their now globally famous slogan ‘Girl Power’.
As they hit the stratosphere as the biggest girlband in history, they took that motto – and all the feminist attitude it represented – with them. They shouted it with pride wherever they went and fans across the world were only too happy to join in.
And Geri, or Ginger Spice, was then as vociferous as her band mates.
It was Geri, famous for her tiny Union Jack dress, who spoke about wanting to give ‘feminism a kick up the a***’.
So when she declared last month that Girl Power was defunct – and that the term should be ‘inner power’ instead, to include any gender – some members of the band were left ‘absolutely horrified’.
The 52-year-old – now known as Geri Halliwell-Horner after her marriage to Formula One boss Christian Horner – was at the launch of her latest children’s book when she told her young audience: ‘Girl Power was a sweet word for feminism. But if you look in the dictionary and see what feminism means, it means the “equalisation between the sexes”.
(From left) Melanie Chisholm, Emma Bunton, Victoria Beckham, Melanie Brown and Geri Halliwell of the Spice Girls, pictured together in 1997
‘Therefore, to me it’s irrelevant what your gender is: I want everyone to feel their power. So let’s evolve that word from “Girl Power” to “Inner Power”.’
A source close to some of the band – whose members include Victoria Beckham, Melanie Chisholm, Melanie Brown and Emma Bunton – tells me: ‘There is a song the band sang called Who Do You Think You Are? and it would be fair to say that there are questions being asked, such as who indeed does Geri think she is?
‘The others, Victoria included, are so proud of shouting loudly about gender equality and the influence they had on society.
‘Does she think it is OK to rubbish the legacy of the Spice Girls, a band that five very strong women were proudly part of and which helped drive a lot of change, during a talk to promote her own career as a book author?
‘A huge premise of the band was that they wanted to tell their fans girls could do things just as well as – or even better than – boys.
‘We are now in a time when girl identity is under threat and yet she thinks it’s OK to write Girl Power off in such a public way.’
Geri Halliwell-Horner, 52, last month declared that Girl Power was defunct – leaving some members of the band ‘absolutely horrified’
Another source said: ‘There she is, Geri in her ivory tower, wearing her ivory clothes not really wanting to be part of the Spice Girls any more. That is fine – that’s up to her – but don’t ruin it for the rest of those who do.’
Geri is, of course, a very different incarnation from her 22-year-old self. At the height of her fame, she was brash, wore outlandish and raunchy clothes and, quipped a friend who knew her at the time, ‘took no s*** off anyone’.
Now her wardrobe is an understated collection of muted whites and ivories. There are also the demure and wholesome Instagram posts of her life on the £7 million Cotswolds estate she shares with Red Bull boss Christian, Geri’s daughter Bluebell, 19, from a previous relationship with British director Sacha Gervasi, and the couple’s son Monty, eight.
One former associate also points out that last year, when Christian was embroiled in a scandal involving text messages to a female colleague, Geri kept a stoic silence. ‘You wonder if Geri might have played it differently when she was full-on Ginger Spice,’ they joked.
Indeed, Christian is the reason given to explain why Geri has apparently distanced herself further from her bandmates as they approach their 30th anniversary.
She didn’t attend Mel B’s 50th birthday in Leeds last weekend, leaving just Emma and Mel C to join the celebrations because Victoria had another commitment.
I’m also told that Geri doesn’t want to join in a hotly anticipated reunion tour.
One source says: ‘She doesn’t really want to be Ginger Spice again, there was a time and a place for that. Today she’s more of a lady of the manor type.’
However, she is understood to have spoken to Simon Fuller – the music mogul who created the Spice Girls – about the possibility of the band emulating the enormous success of Abba Voyage.
The avatar-based project sees digital images of the Swedish band ‘performing’ on stage, and is still running after three years.
Fuller and his company XIX Entertainment were instrumental in making that happen and – were it to come to fruition – the Spice Girls’ version would feature all five members during their heyday.
It has yet to be raised with the band’s management. But it could pose a solution if the girls want to make money without having to appear on stage together again.
Yet if Fuller is involved in any future projects, it might be tricky for some of Geri’s bandmates. Victoria, 50, and husband David fell out with the music mogul in 2018.
Mel C is also said not to be a fan, and both she and Victoria bought themselves out of their contracts with XIX Entertainment.
‘At the moment we have Victoria who won’t step on stage again, Geri too, Emma, Mel B who would go with the flow and Mel C who won’t work with Simon Fuller,’ says a source.
‘Maybe the solution is to bring them back as avatars,’ adds another source close to the band. ‘That way they wouldn’t actually have to stand next to each other, or share a backstage area or tour buses. There would be no bickering – yet it would be money while they sleep.’
But any Spice Girls concert – be it real or digital – that didn’t feature the bandmates hollering ‘Girl Power’ just wouldn’t be the same.
