December 31, 2025 • 52 mins
This summer we are curating your Lowbrow podcast playlist bringing you the insanely popular and always funny - brutally honest reviews from our friends on The Spill. Enjoy!
Today’s episode is a crash course in 90s pop culture Em never saw coming. After confessing a major entertainment knowledge gap when it comes to The Spice Girls, Laura decided it was time for an education.
From the origins of the world’s biggest girl group to the scandals, the hits, and the drama that dominated headlines while Em was still learning to walk and talk - this is the brutally honest Spice Girls history lesson we all need to brush up on. Get ready for nostalgia, girl power, and a deep dive into the 90s lore everyone should be across.
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CREDITS
Hosts: Laura Brodnik and Em Vernem
Executive Producer: Monisha Iswaran
Audio Producer: Scott Stronach
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
So you're listening to a Muma Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Mama Mea acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
that this podcast is recorded on Hi.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
It's Laura Brodneck here, host of our pop culture and
entertainment podcast, The Spill, and this summer we're curating your
lowbrow playlist, bringing you our brutally honest reviews from the
top TV shows of the year, to the biggest movies
of twenty twenty five, and some of the classics that
shaped us. Every episode is giving you the Spills, completely
(00:39):
unfiltered and real takes. So your summer listening is sorted.
And if you're looking for more to listen to, every
Mamma Mea podcast is curating your summer listening right across
our network. From pop culture to beauty to powerful interviews,
there is something for everyone. Just follow the link in
our show notes from Mamma Mia. Welcome to The Spill,
(01:05):
your daily pop culture fix.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
I'm Laura Brodneck and I'm and on the show.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Today, we're doing a brutally honest review of the Spice
Girl as an entity. Just the concept, just the concept
of the Spy.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Girl and why are we doing this?
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Well, I mean this doesn't paint you in the best light,
so spillers will remember that. Recently, in an episode, we
were talking about the fact that Victoria Beckham has a
new series coming to Netflix. It's a little documentary series
really centering on the build up to her latest fashion
show in her career. Lovely fine, nice news. We like
Victoria Beckham. It should have just been a really quick segment.
(01:46):
But as we were talking about the release of this documentary,
you let the world in on a very disturbing fact
and it derailed the whole episode. And I think it's
the first time we've come quite close to a physical fight.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
I was trolled for.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
This, yeah, and so you should have been. I don't
don't believe except in this moment I had. So.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Firstly, I'm gonna say, you're gonna fucking troll me. Put
your name on your comment. Do not anonymously message me
from a fake account. Put your name on your comment.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Secondly, I didn't say I didn't know what the Spice
Girls world, you idiots.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
I said, don't be mean to live.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
I said I was never around for the big Spice
Girls thing, so I never understood it.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Okay, but you also didn't know who, like the various
Spice Girl people like you didn't know who, like Emma Bunton, baby.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Three out of the five?
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Oh which three? Do you know?
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Victoria Beckham obviously? Melby Yeah, and Jerry.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
You don't know Melcy.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Until she came into the office.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
I didn't say, yeah, I knew of the other two,
but I didn't know them. Does that make sense? Yeah?
I mean, yeah, yeah, it does. Look Look I understand
about not because I mean a lot of this really
kicked off in nineteen ninety six. Were you alive in
nineteen ninety six?
Speaker 2 (02:56):
I was coming out of my mum's vagina.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Okay, so you're busy, a bit busy, had a lot on,
so you get a little bit of a pass. But
the thing, and.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Also I was a four steps baby, so I was
pulled into the world.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
I didn't even want to come out. If it wasn't
the forces, I would know about the spice I don't
know if we can bring the medical intervention into this.
I was pulled into this world. Didn't want to be
here to deal with the antics of the spice. Spice
World movie in spics. Okay, so yeah, it wasn't the only.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Spicy World that was happening.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Okay, okay, So off the back of that, and again
we had so many listeners message us about this, get
upset about this, and so we're going to fix this today.
M We're going to fix it, and we're going to
go through a brilliant, honest review of the Spice Girl's
history and legacy.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
And I do want to say, like, apart from my
three trials, yep, everyone else was quite nice about it.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
They were just like, hey, you should know about this.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
They were like, hey, here's some learning material which I skimmed.
They called you in and they were also like, hey,
I also didn't know this. Thank you for saying it
out loud.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
No one posted that, no one posted you had to
drive public.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
It was like a little dem and I was like,
feel free to comm on this publicly and they were
like absolutely.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
No, I don't want to want to know this. We
saw your trolley. Yeah, So that's what we're going to
do today. One of the reasons I'm surprised that you
didn't know that much about them is that, yes, they
were famous many many years ago, like well over twenty
years ago now, but their legacy is still so prevalent
today and They're still referenced so much today, and I
guess all the members of the band are still very
(04:24):
famous in many different ways. So they're not one of
those kind of quick fire pop success stories that like
burned really bright and then fizzled out. They're still part
of our world. That's why I was surprised. Yeah, so
the Spies Girls actually, and a lot of people tell
me that I'm lying when I say this. I just
want to set the record straight. One of the most
interesting thing about the Spies Girls is that they were
really only together for two years.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
That is bizarre to me. All together for two years,
So what were the years they were together?
Speaker 1 (04:52):
So this is how I'm reading history. I'm doing their
start date from when Wannabe, which was their first single,
was released. It was released in nineteen ninety six, and
then I'm calling the end of the Spy Skirls when
Jerry Halliwell left the band, which was in nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Far out, so I would have been te years old,
but you would have been a kid.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Oh no, No, I was a kid, but the spy
skills were for the kids before I was in primary school,
Like I barely knew what the world was but I
knew the Spice Girls because their faces were over T
shirts and all the shopping centers, Like everyone at school
would wear their Spy Skull T shirts on free dress
days to the musty days. Oh no, that's not the coins.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
I think free dressed because you can wear whatever you.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Want, you free away whatever you want. That makes sense,
And like we would all watch the Spy Skills on
TV and listen to their music. The first CD I
ever bought as a kid was a Spy Sgirl's album,
and I got it for Christmas and my mum had
a little portable CD player in her bedroom and if
I wanted to listen to it, I had to walk
my little CD in and take it out of its
case and put it in the CD player and I
would just listen to those songs for hours and hours.
(05:55):
My friends and I would all do the dances at school.
We'd all pick a Spice Girl. That's the thing. They
were this like kind of almost like a cartoonish, you know,
because they had everyone had their own look, and they
were like really poppy. It's like how kids today dressed
in like like eazy, really tiny little kids listening into
Taylor Swift and dressed like her, different areas and stuff.
That was the Spice Girls. Oh wow, for adults and
(06:15):
kids alike. They were for everyone. Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
That yeah, comparison, This is the first time, like Colpow,
what could that be?
Speaker 1 (06:22):
I hadn't even watched Buffy yet. I wasn't introduced to
like superheroes and stuff so cute.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
So you know who that was for me when I
was a kid.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Who don't it's okay.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Nicki Webster, Oh okay, Strawberry Kisses. It was Nicki Webster.
And then like Guys Sebastian and Shannon No, wow, was
the first like Australian.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
It was such a homegrowing.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Oh my god, I spent so much money voting for
Guy Sebastian an Australian items.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Well it worked. Parents are so sad next time we
see him an event because he's you know who's always
at an event is Guys Sebastian and Nicki Webster. I
see Nicky Webster at every single event I go to.
The last time I was on a dance fall till
three am, it was me and Nicky Webster and her
two children who were the same height as her. Yeah,
she's so had and I also once was crying in
a musical and this girl turner right in front of me.
I just think to be like, is this woman okay
(07:07):
behind me? Because she's crying and she's overcome with the music.
It was Nicky webstill looking at me. Nicky Webster. Every
time I walk an event, I see her. She doesn't
know who I am. It's very parasocial relationship.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
She's at legend, Like I know he's a legend. The
female football team, the Matilda's, that's their team song.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
It's one Kisses. I'm so across that scene.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
So anyway, that was like because I always assumed spice
girls were for like teenage girls or like girls in
their twenties, which I'm sure they were for, but I
remember so specifically being like five years old and seeing
what the older girls were listening to, and it was
Nicky Webster and I was like, oh, okay, okay, Webster
is a thing.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Well back in nineteen ninety six, as I said, the
spy skills were for everyone, Like you put that music
on a class and like I was like, yes, the
minute you hear what I really want. It's like teaching
some students like what good is that song?
Speaker 2 (07:54):
So good, Like it's like, hold up at every single wedding.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
There's so many spic skirl songs I listened to still
on a weekly basis. So want to be spicedopy life?
Who you think you are to become one? Like? So many?
So the Spy Skirls Are released three studio albums and
they said all kinds of crazy records which we were
going to get into, But I'm going to take you
right back to the start, before we get through the
trauma of people leaving the band, backlash and that sort
of thing, to nineteen ninety four. You have yet to
(08:20):
be pulled from your mother's woman's by four sets of
that stage. I don't even think my parents are dating.
In nineteen ninety four in London, many many, many young
women gather in this tiny little dance work studios because
they have all seen a tiny little advert in the stage,
which was where you like see jobs and stuff in
the stage newspaper advertising for a girl band. This was
(08:44):
the first really big manufactured girl band where like a
group of producers and a company got together and they're like,
we are going to audition women and we're going to
put them in advance.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
So it's like can you sing?
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Can you dance? Are you pretty? Yeah? Pretty much? That
is the makeup. Is it kind of like what they
did with Bardo? Yes? No, no, Bardo is like based
off all those reality shows and things like Bardo, all
those manufactured pop groups all based off the Spice Girls.
Because it works so well that time. So the advert
goes out in the stage newspaper and dozens and dozens
and dozens of young women turn up to the auditions
(09:15):
where they all split into groups of ten and they
do a dance routine that they are taught in the moment. Afterwards,
they each have to go on stage, and it was
the father son management team, Bob and Chris Herbert, who
were doing all the auditions, and they all had to
get up on stage and do a quick song and
dance routine for them Dallas Cowboys, yeah, or even just
(09:36):
like pop stars and Barto put together. This is the
kind of formation they use. It's like group singing and
then they get sent away and then you come back.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
I got the chills from my performance days. I used
to play piano, so if they were looking for a pianist,
I would have been right there.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
I just don't know if you would have made the cart.
I don't if I would have made the cart. Hey
I can hold a tune. But a month later a
group of girls were invited back for a second they'd
made it through the second round, like out of the
fifty sixty who auditioned, ten girls were called back, and
in that group was Jerry Halliwell. Now Jerry Halliwell is
interesting because she didn't make it to the first open
call audition because she was very ill and had a
(10:12):
sunburn because she'd been on holiday.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
She was ill from her sunburn.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Yeah, you can get you can get it if you
get a.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Really good poisoning.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
I don't know if there's a doctor specificate to say.
How about it was, so she'd been in Spain, she
got a sunburn, she couldn't go on an audition, and she
wasn't feeling well. And Victoria Beckham's the one who has
told this story in her memoir is that she called
the company who was doing the cattle call auditions and
pleaded and begged to be allowed to come back into
the second round. And that's the fun thing about Jerry
Halliwell and why she's the spy skull that I've started
(10:42):
relating to the most because she was never the best dancer,
the best singer, the best anything like that. She was
just the one who pushed the hardest. And I really
related to that because personally, I'm not really great at anything.
I just do a lot of prep. So even if
you kind of read all the spic Skirls biographies of
all the audition stages of Jerry Halliwell getting into the
band and afterwards when they were kind of deciding like
(11:04):
who would be the lead singer there, and who would
be like the front of the dance and all this
sort of stuff, very Helluwell often had the worst marks
out of all the girls. They used to score them
every time they got to a rehearsal. They would score
them out of ten and be like individually for dance,
looks and singing. And she was always really low and
she would sometimes like go in the corner and start sobbing,
and I would tell her to get it together.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Oh my god, she's I reckon. She's living the life
out of.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
All of them than I was, because she married rich.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Married, rich married, and f on principle not anymore though. Yeah,
lives on a beautiful farm and she always wears white
and beige because it shows that, like that's the type
of work. If you can like confidently wear the color
white every day of your life, you're not doing much.
And that's kind of what I want to aspy it.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Yeah, it just looks like you've never lifted a finger
in your life. That's a very different Jolly Harry Well.
Back in the day, she was a scrappy kind of
like go getter, and they said, once she got on stage,
you were just drawn to watching her, and that's how
she got through to the final stages. So once they
had finished all of these auditions, they formed the band
and it was Victoria Beckham, Melanie Chisholm, Melanie Brown, Jerry
(12:11):
Halliwell and Michelle Stephenson.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
A lot of these names sound very confusing to me.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
So one of those names is not famous. I was
gonna say, do you know what? I thought it was
going to be like a big mic drop, that you
would be like, who the hell is Michelle Stevenson, the
original Spice Girl. She made it through the auditions and apparently, no, no, no,
it's so much worse. It's so much worse than that.
So she made it through to the audition stage and
they had the band. So it was the two melanies,
(12:37):
it was Jerry, it.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Was holding I'm stressed and it's like pulse.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Jerry is Victoria Victoria Beckham. People say she can't sing,
score the highest all through the auditions, so she can
sing apparently, allegedly we haven't really seen it since then,
but apparently she scored very very high. And Michelle Stevenson,
who scored incredibly high across the board and came from
like a very prestigious performing arts.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Wait, I thought you counted five. That's five, So who's missing?
Speaker 1 (13:02):
No?
Speaker 2 (13:02):
No, no, so wait wait, wait, wait, say the names again.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
So the two Melanies, Jerry and Victoria and Michelle Stevenson
are in the band. They made it through.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
So where's Emma?
Speaker 1 (13:14):
So they go said, I know we're getting to m
So then they start rehearsing and the company starts putting
them together, and as they sort of start forming who
the band will be, and like these are going to
be the songs and this is how we're going to
dance all these things, they won't even call the Spice
Girls yet. Michelle Stevenson says, I don't want to do
this anymore, and she leaves the band. Oh my god,
(13:35):
the worst mistake she's ever made. And she said she
didn't like the music, she didn't like the routine, she
didn't like the everything about it. She's like, it wasn't
for me. Michelle Stevenson has given a lot of interviews
since then because unfortunately for her, she did not become famous,
and she has you look so stressed.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Right now because I get other interviews about how you
fumble the biggest bag ever.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Well, She's like, of course, I regret I'm not a
multi millionaire like them, and I would have loved to
be that famous and have that fandom. But she's also
said like, at the time when I left, I thought
I was doing the right thing. It just wasn't my
kind of music and they were not living the lifestyle
I wanted I did. Yeah, so she left when they
wanted doing interviews about it. She's done many interviews over
the years, so everyone wants to know, like, who was
(14:15):
the original Spy S girl who left just before they
hit the big time and then she was replaced by
Emma Bunton who went on to be Baby Spice, who
was like a performer but obviously not also not famous.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
So did she go through the audition processes too, and
she was just like the next on the list.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
No, no, she didn't. They just she was like a ring
and they brought in later. Oh my god, so now
we have our band. We're seeing like the worst luck
and the best luck played out in front of you.
Emma Bunton getting a phone called hello. They're like, do
you want to come and be in this like girl
group putting together? And she's like, I guess, I what
nothing else? So I guess. So she kind of slipped
in and Michelle slipped out and then yeah, Michelle, Yeah,
(14:49):
but also maybe if she'd say, they wouldn't have been
the Spice Girls. It's hard to know, but yeah, it's
it would have been hard to know that you were
selected to be in the biggest girl group of all
time and then you decided to leave just before they
found their momentum.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
That's like some significant message from the universe.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Yeah. Ah, so god, I'm so sad. It's so sad
for me. Want to find Michelle Stevenson online somewhere and like, Lida, please.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Michelle if you're listening, because I know you probably might be.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
You've got some time we hear. Oh no, I was.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Gonna say something really mean, say it may go on.
I was gonna say, I just know she has her
notifications on for SEO for her name, so she will be.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Yeah, I think. So we said, look, it's not too late, Michelle.
You can go and do something. You could be a
podcast host.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Michelle y easy, it's really easy.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
So then we have our five girls and they're not
yet really the Spice Girls, and they are put an
apartment together and apartment yeah, like all living in one
apartment together. And then they move to like a little
house and all together. Yeah h they have literally no money.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Maybe Michelle made the right choice.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
This what I'm saying, This is nineteen ninety four. Waa
BE doesn't come out till nineteen ninety six. There's a
bit of time in there where they're like living and
working for these two men Bob and Chris Herbert, and
all of these men, Bob and Chris Herbert, I mean
they're the ones who kind of found them. So they
kind of found the father and son father and sign
management duo.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
So an O G NEPO situation.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
And then as they're sort of telling the Spice Girls
what to do, how to dress, what they're going to
see how they're going to perform and like making them
work these long hours. The spy s girls start to
hate Bob and Chris and they're like, you know what,
we're great, there's something here, but we need to get
away from these men. Yeah, And so.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
It doesn't send them to most women saying the exactly
least one, we need to get away from the we're
great and we need to get away from these men.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Yeah, because they kind of realized that there was something
like quite magic and interesting women notoriously smart. Yeah, this
is the best. This is the opposite of the Michelle
Stevenson this situation. It's like a very smart decision.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
It's like we're leaving Michelle leaving YouTube as well.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
So they decide that they're gonna get away from Bob
and Chris. How did they escape because they hadn't signed
a contract.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Oh smart girls.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
But but Bob and Chris had the master recording, has
the master recordings, and we theron, no, it's so much
worse than for Wanna Be and to become one the
songs that were gone to be two of their biggest
songs ever. And they're like, if we don't have those songs.
(17:26):
We can't leave because those songs are our ticket to
like getting radio playing any management.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
So such good songs.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
This is what Victoria Beckham has written in her autobiography,
and I don't want to call her a liar, but
I just can't see how this story is possibly thick
down the door. This is you got to think this
is the nineties, so to take the Masters. The Masters
is a physical copy. So apparently Jerry went into the
office and physically stole the Master recordings. Yeah. In her biography,
(17:52):
Victoria Beckham said it was like very Bonnie and Clyde,
and then after.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Clyde, it sounds like Jerry was on one God, I'm so,
I'm so tired. Someone else please, They're like.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
So they won't Jo. It's like you've got this, Jerry.
Yeah exactly. They're like, go on, I haven't told you
the worst part of that story yet, which is like
when she went into steal the physical copy of the
Masters Halliwell said no, no, that when she ran out
with them, she said, I put them in my nickers
so that Bob and Chris couldn't like chase her down
to get them away from her.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
That's entrepreneurial that is, and that's what that's called being
a what what size our masters?
Speaker 1 (18:35):
I'm thinking of vinyls. Yes, I'm thinking they were like
a cassette tape. Oh school, this was got it. Yeah,
so that's the story they're telling. So no contract, We've
got the masters and we're physically running. Then they was
working from the back of Jerry Swift. Just do that.
She runs into school. Why do you have to get
us all involved in this situation. It's like you could
(18:57):
have just put them in your knickers, like it's it's
good enough for Jerry halliwell, it's enough for you. Taylor
switch Well needs.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
To do like a school, yeah, school of mastership.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Yeah. And now you see he is this prim and
proper rich woman, and I'm like, what a legend working
walking the streets in her white dress and like you
just remember what she was.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
She's gonna have the best stories for her kids.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Yeah, you just know it. Yeah. I think she's trying
to have most of them buried. So then so then
the women have their masters, but they have their management
and no money and no prospects and no contacts, and
they're being pride and prejudice. They're unmarriable and they're working
from the back of Jerry's beat up car because they
(19:35):
can't even afford like a studio, like we have nowhere
to stay. And then they were all just looking at Jr.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
And just like get in the car and it was
all just the five of them sleeping in the car.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
And then they started to build a new team and
they eventually signed with Simon Fuller, who is very very
he was Annie Lennox's manager at the time. He's a
very huge name music, very well known and I know
one okay good. Yeah, he's the one who really went
on to like make the Spice Girls, and he was
the one who was like met them, saw their potential,
listen to the Stolen Masters that Jerry pulled out of
around where he then was like, I'm going to make
(20:11):
this happen for you guys and get you in the
studio to record more music. I'm going to introduce you
to record labels. And this is when they sort of
started becoming the band that we saw as The Spice Girl.
But it wasn't all rosy. It sounds like they were
like all best friends for the start.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
They were not oh yeah, okay, I have a theory, Okay.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Was it like split down the middle? Yeah, it was
two against three. I'm gonna hate what I'm about to
tell you. It was four against one. No, oh my god.
When she left that we're just like, we don't story.
(20:54):
I didn't realize how that it wasn't so until I
started telling you the story. She stole the masters by herself.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Well, to be honest, I basically like put the masters
where masters should never be put.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
She let them all sleep in her car, and the
like what after.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
All of that, we just don't like you.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Yeah, look to be fair, some of them also hated Victoria.
So in Melby's book. Again, I'm getting all this information
from their books.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
It's while that we have to read all of their
autobiographies and then piece together.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
That's what I've done, because there's so many rumors about them,
and there's so many unauthorized Like when I was six,
I saved up all my pocket money to go to
the Scholastic book fair at school and I bought the
unauthorized autobiography of the Spice Girls. And let me tell you,
that thing was four wise. I realized now full of propaganda.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
It was written by the two guys. What are the
names Bob and Jim. The whole biography is just like
and that's why women suck. That's why women should be
given because they break into your studio and still watch.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Belogs to you exactly so. In her book, Melby said
that she thought Emma was a softy and lovely Everyone
likes Emma. That's why I'm called GDM. Sometimes everyone likes
softy and lovely. Yeah, only on the outside, and once
you know, get to know you, it's less that She's
like Victoria, who they all called Vicky at the time
until she asked them to stop. They thought Vicky was
a bit of a snob, and they all thought Jerry
(22:19):
was a loud mouth in their books Emma, Victoria and
the Print. In all of their books and interviews since, Emma,
Victoria and Melsey have all called Jerry a complete nutter
in like a mean way. They're all best friends now,
like they became best friends. That was just their initial
(22:39):
And here's their reasoning. Because she's a redhead. Yes, that's why. No,
he's their reasoning. We thought she was a bit strange
because she had her hair and bunches and was wearing
it and yeah, you have to tie her up when
you're about to commit a crime.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
I'm sorry, you can't have your hair out. Imagine convincing Jerry,
do you steal the masters, It'll be fine for you.
She goes to tie her up, and they're like, ooh,
ooh god, I don't think she'd be doing that, did you?
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Guys? See how she tied up her hair when she
just steal out of music back for us. That's crazy.
I know.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
She's like literally like an event, like crawling through.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
That's the worst fight. Why is the worst? These women?
I've been through so much. It's nineteen ninety six, dude. No,
we're still in nineteen ninety five and I'm not there. Yeah,
I've got so many years to go. Okay, I can't
believe they said when they first met her and then
she would tire her and bunches. She would wear a pink,
fuffy jumper and say, look look I'm a duck. Okay,
(23:43):
that's on, Jerry, Jerry, I can't. I can't. It's like
I keep standing up at you like this, if you're
just defending her and defending her and defending her, and
then that happened, and.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Then that happens. Yeah, it's okay, Jerry, you kind of
deserve that one.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
But they all became friends really quickly after, right, So
they had that in a sentence, Look, look I'm a duck. Yeah,
and Jerry has never disputed that she said that. Oh
I think she's just trying to have a fun time. Well,
it would be a pretty bizarre line. And she's like,
you know what, there's my wife. I'm not going to
stand it for that's what Melby said. She said, Okay, Melby,
(24:17):
she was there. Then they started bonding because they were
all away from their families, they had no money, and
Victoria Beckham, they were trying to talk her out of
marrying a very unsuitable man at the time. They were
just about to become super famous, David Beckham. No, I'm sorry.
I was like they hated Beckham. No, they love David
be cheat on her. They're like, protect David at all costs.
(24:38):
In the very early days of the Spice Girls, You'll
notice a very interesting thing if you look in the
credit section is that Victoria is called Victoria Adams Wood
because her fiance at the time that was his last name,
Mark Wood. Who's that. So they had been together for
nearly six years. She's twenty one at this time, I
feel like, Brad, Yeah, and I'm kidding, some people can
(25:02):
get married. I'm sorry, but it's just because she was like, no,
I'm going to marry this guy and I'm going to
use his name on all and they're about to make
get big, so whatever name, they have to be strategic. Yeah,
And the other girls were like Vicki and she's like,
don't call me that. Like, okay, Victoria, Victoria, you're not
even married to this guy. You've been together for a while. Yes,
he's proposed to you. He proposed to her just after
(25:23):
the Spy. She made it through the Spice Girls auditions.
I don't want to cast a spurse.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
It sounds like a very Melby type of conversation, like
I can see her having.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
So Mark was like he wanted her to like kind
of focus on his career because he was also on
the up and up. He installed burglar alarms in people's homes. Wait,
he was like, I think it should be about me.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
He's like, he's like this a woman named Jerk.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
He's breaking.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
And she always has his hair tied up exactly in
bunche of.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
So wait, so he was up and coming in the
burglar and she had just made it into what was
going to be the Spice Girls, and she was using
his name as her name because she's like, no, he
also been to marry him. I said, yes, we've been
together for so long. And she was really going to
like put her a lot of her career on hold
to make or that she was married to this man,
and the other Spy Skulls talked her out of it.
Do not marry this guy, especially right now. We're about
(26:14):
to go on to world tour. We're about to sell
these alb about to get on the plane, and so
she said. She broke up with him just as the
Spy Skulls were starting to take off, saying it was
a mistake, but she kept the ring because she said
it was a sick ring. Oh that's so rochter. I
love that. So we love Victoria Beckham. Oh that's so cool. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
No, they have to keep the band together. They can
be VICKI, even though we know you don't like that name.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
You can't leave us with a duck. Duck Girls, if
anything swap And you've got to remember she was the
highest scorer from the auditions, although they famously didn't let
her sing on a lot of their biggest songs. So
do you think they.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Didn't let us sing because they were jealous because she
was a highest scorer?
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Not? Well, the thing is when you listen to them
all sing, like they can all sing quite well. Melcy's
definitely got the best voice, Like far away, She's say Spice,
Yes she is sporty Spices. What a beautiful segway. How
they got their nicknames so a big part of why
the spy Skirls were so successful, apart from the fact
that they just had bad songs. But that's not always enough.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
That's true, like you need to put your life out there.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Yeah, exactly. But they were just so marketable because they
came out of the gates so strong with all these personas,
and everyone could pick which spic Skirl were you, and
they looked so incredible together, like I said, almost like
something out of a wild cartoon. They also did more
marketing in the two years they were together than most
bands do in decades. They just said yes to pretty
much every single endorsement deal.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
So, which is why it's like so wild when you
told me that they actually only lasted two years. Yeah,
because I remember being a kid and having like getting
Total Girl magazine, and there was always a which spice
girl are you quiz? It was the biggest I'm It
just would have been like mid two thousands, like friendships.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Were brought together and then ended in the school yard
over which spy school you were, because you know, if.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
You stand baby, yeah, and we know you're posh.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Yeah yeah, yeah, Well I guess I'm Jerry?
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Which was which one did everyone want to be at
the time, So like sometimes people want to be Baby,
A lot of people wanted to be posh, some people
wanted to be Jerry. It was also at a time
where like sometimes the sporty girls weren't as popular as
they were now, so not everyone wanted to be sporty,
and all of the time, no one wanted to be scary,
which is hard because as you get older, like she
was like really the best one, yeah in terms of
(28:22):
like stage presents and everything, and even like her voice,
Like I feel like when I listened to Spy Skull songs,
I could easily pick out which one was Melby.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Yeah she's got a real place. Yeah, we love her now.
But so the names were actually given to them by
a magazine called Top of the Pops. Which was a huge,
huge magazine at the time, and so the editors has
given quite a few interviews Michelle Michelle burn book and
(28:51):
made them even more famous, just like damn it. I
tried to take it down. So I got this straight
from the BBC because I was like, I feel like
they will have the correct information and I was trying
to Again, there's a lot of false stories about how
the spic Skulls got their name, but it was from
Top of the Pops and the editor, Peter Lorraine, has
given interviews since about it, and he said the names
just jumped out at us. The girls were first starting
to get famous because they had they were already dressing
(29:12):
in very distinct ways. He said, Posh was the first
one we thought of because Victoria looks pretty sophisticated, fair
and he goes. The rest were pretty easy because all
their characters were really strong. Because we've since kind of
realized there's quite a lot of racial undertones. Yes, he said,
we laughed the most when we came up with Scary.
Then he throws a stuff meanbront of the bus. Jennifer Cawthorne,
(29:33):
who was also from Leeds, which is where Melby is from,
came up with that one because Melby was so loud
and had tried to take over our whole photo shoot,
which also was a thing like Melby was the one
that Spice girls were always notoriously very very hard to interview.
They gave so much, like all your content with them,
from what I've heard from all these journalists, was insanely good.
(29:54):
But you couldn't plan anything they showed it for a
photo shoot that would tear the entire room apart. Start
Like chasing the cameramen around, making jokes, live tea with
them is like insane. They would just say anything, and
Melby was often the instigator of the big moments. That's
why they called her scary.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
But also you can't call the like woman of color
in young group scary Spice, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
Because peoplere like, oh, she's so scary, And I was like,
they're all doing weird stuff. Jerry's over there and a
duck jump up and that erring people her scary Bob, Yeah,
I would say. Victoria Beckham had that icy stare she looked,
and she famously never smiled. I was like, if anyone's scary,
it's her. I'd much rather hang out with Melby, but
(30:38):
they were their names. And then in nineteen ninety seven,
when they were sort of coming up with like they
were starting to take over their branding more, they wanted
to change their names. They're like personas Melby and people
laugh at her about this, But now that we saw
the racial undertones, I can kind of see her point.
Melby wanted to stop being scary Spice, and she wanted
to be abrupt Spice, which doesn't really roll at the
(31:00):
same abrupt abrupt spa I'm so bright, Oh yeah, yeah,
emmam wanted to be gets away with murder Spie too
many words, it's too must have downs missed the port
of the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
That's the way would murder and Victoria.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Suggests should poss posh half the time Spice Oh soo
too manyone. In private, Jerry thought Melby should be called
the Ox. Jerry, she missed the point he's doing. Like
Melby wrote this in her book, She said, Jerry said,
I should be called the Ox because I could operate
(31:34):
perfectly on the most outrageous hangover, or even do a
full performance effortlessly after several bottles of champagne, or while
she would be throwing up in the loop. Oh my god,
I don't know if the ox rolls off the tongue.
Well maybe these girls were good at marketing, just not
in that moment.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
I think Jerry maybe was a bit like, Hey, I
am sick of being near only animal.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
I don't want to be a duck anymore. Can someone
else be another animal? Now we're into their first single,
could you be?
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Oh my god, they've already gone through so much.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
They have gone through this thing. There's no such thing
as an overnight success. Two years later, Wanna Bee cames
out absolute banger over song has absolutely stood the test
of time, one of the best songs in the world.
Want to Be I don't even feel like that's going
out a limb to say that, because we're still singing
it so much to this day. Everyone still quotes it
when the record label.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
The lyrics don't even make any sense. That's how it's
such a good song, Like if it be my love,
you have to get with my friend.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
But I think they mean like, you have to also
be friends with my friends.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
You have to hook up with my friends.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
Yeah. Oh that's great too. Yeah, So just a reminder,
they've stolen this song and brought it over to this
new record. True, that's true. They've done the money, they
give it to the record label, and the record label says,
we love you guys, we love you as a band.
They did this stunt where like when they were signing
to the record label, they sent a car full of
blob dolls to the record studio and the dolls like
carded through the studio and then were thrown into the
(32:54):
river nearby where they floated for days. And they were like,
got to sign these ladies. They're amazing, and they said
we love you guys. We're not releasing want to Be.
That's a bad song, Jerry. She put in all that,
like it's too weird, it doesn't make any sense, it's
not catchy. They'd already shot the music video. They hated
the music video, and they also said they had already
(33:16):
been in touch with BBC Radio. BBC Radio refused to play, and.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
The other four were like, god damn it, Jerry, Yeah,
how dare you?
Speaker 1 (33:25):
And so and a bunch of also TV stations were
refusing to play it.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Imagine if we never had wann to be.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Imagine, I don't want to live. It would be a
really sad world. I don't even think I'd be here,
the whole lives would be different.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Might still be here trying to get pulled out.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
Yeah, bring it back to that. But the girls say
that they knew better, and they said it's non negotiable.
Wanna Be is our first single or we walk pretty
much and the song came out and we've done it before,
we'll do it again, I mean, I think, And these
are not empty threats and we've got nothing to lose
(34:00):
because we're living out of a.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Car, living out of Jerry's car, who we hate.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
So pick your battles. And then in July nineteen ninety six,
Want to Be was released and it spent seven weeks
at number one in the UK and four weeks number
one in the US and went on to become a
huge global hit across the world.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
And they were like, we've told you so, Jerry.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Yeah, we told you exactly.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Get Oh my god, okay, so you have want to Be?
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Yes? And so then life gets absolutely crazy for the
Spy Skulls. They go on world tours, they release more music,
they have this intense fandom around them where people were like,
we haven't seen this since the Beatles. It is crazy.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
What was like, was it like the same level of
Taylor Swift concept.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Yeah, I mean obviously there's a kind of I don't
know if it was. It was kind of the level
of that he would have been too young to be
able to go. Oh no, god, no, I've never seen
the Spy Skulls lie. And did I do world Yeah? Yeah,
you know they did world tours. Like just remember they've
only got two years to squeeze this in. They did
a lot than two years. They did world tours. I
guess they would sell out when they would go to events,
like the streets would be lined with fans trying to
(35:09):
like breakdown barriers. I guess in a way it was
Tailor Swift. It is hard because obviously, with Taylor Swift,
we've got so much documentation of what happens in those
concerts of fans and like we can see the intensity
when tickets go on sale. But I guess, like it was, yeah,
people would like sleep out for days overnight to get
Spicekulls tickets. And they just became so so so huge
that they did become like the biggest band in the world.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
That's insane.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
And they thought we've released all of these hit singles,
all our albums sell out, all of our tours sell out.
We've got our name on every single product across the world.
They just went with more is more and they just
said yes to every single endorsement deal that came along.
That's why their face was just plast They're like, you know,
some people are like, oh, what I use the product,
my integrity, I'm not putting my name on that. They're like,
put it on everything. The more you see us, the better.
(35:53):
And it worked for them.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
Whoa, And that's how you do it.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
And that's how they made so much money. And then
when you're the biggest pop stars in the world and
all your songs are successful and everyone's dressing like you,
what do you do next? Like? What be your move to?
Speaker 2 (36:07):
Also like keep going to kid.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
The momentum going what what can you achieve next? Oh?
Have a YouTube channel? The correct answer is release a
movie which brings us to spice up your world. No,
the Spice World, Spice World, Spy World, the movie the movie. Yeah,
not spice up your world.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
No spice Spice of your Life is a song Spice
up your Life.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
The Spice World movie I can only describe as just
being a fantastic piece of cinema that the world was
not ready for.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
We're still not like, you can't find it anywhere.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
We can't find it anywhere.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
I thought it was on Prime Video, but I realized
it was just Amazon trying to sell me a DVD.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
And you know what, we need to get that DVD.
We'll expense it to the company because you need to
watch Spice Wort. I think it's like eighty dollars. Yeah,
that's fine. That's a bargain in this world, in this economy,
because it's I think it's been scrubbed from every channel.
I can't find it anywhere. I haven't be able to
find it for like fifteen years. As a kid, I
think we're.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
Doing this as Jerry Jerry watch.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
So around like nineteen ninety seven or so, they've been
famous for every year. The girls are getting all these
offers from Hollywood, and offer is from Disney to do
a film Disney, and you think, yes, Disney would be great,
but Disney wanted to Disney fire the Spice Girls, and
so the story wasn't going to be so much about
the Spice Girl like high school musical, as it was
going to be about a young single mother of one
(37:23):
of the girls fighting to form the band. Ough, Yeah,
that's terrible.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
No unless mother was Jerry, Like she was the only
one who was.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
They went with a different writing team. They're basically like,
we're not doing like a big studio like Disney. We're
going to make this sort of like the difference. Again.
That is why the girl power message really took off,
because they lived that in every moment of their lives.
They were just like, we're calling the shots, we're doing it.
And were they always on the same page in these decisions. No,
there's things where like you hear them like disagreeing on
(37:53):
things and like, ultimately that is what led to their demise.
But they were all very much on the same page
that the movie was going to be more true to
their style. So they got a whole bunch of writers
in who came up with this story about So con't
seen the movie, but it's like they're playing themselves, but
it's a falized version of themselves where they have reached
this huge amount of fame and they're building up to
(38:15):
doing this big live concert. But it has all these
like kind of true stories interwoven with it, where one
of their like best friends from before they became famous.
Is like about to have a baby, and like they're
not spending enough time with her. Their managements trying to
turn them into something they're not. They're dealing with these
unscrupulous journalists. Elton John makes a cameo. They get abducted
by aliens at one stage. It's an incredible surrealist comedy
(38:37):
that no one appreciated at the time. Oh no, I
love that.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
So Cada reminds me of like the Jonas Brothers when
they had their show Jonas Brothers.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
Kind of like that, and they had this tool bus
on the outside where they live on the bus in
the movie and upgraded from Joe's car exactly. And it's
so incredible because outside this is a normal bus. When
you get inside, it's like the size of this office
and they all have their own the bus that is
liked of like.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
Harry Potter when they go on that tank and it's
like massive on the inside.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
It's exactly like Harry Potter. Oh my god, Oh my god.
The crossover we didn't know we needed. So could they
act well, you know what was that part of the audition. No,
they're playing themselves, so they didn't need to actually they're
playing caricatures of themselves, so they actually act incredibly well
given the fact that they're just them. Okay, the movie
comes out. I wish we could do that, and critics
will stay tuned in fort the spill for the movie.
(39:24):
And we're also getting the world. Can't imagine were getting
copyright for that. So the movie comes out and critics
who ruin everything not to slam my people, absolutely savage.
It worst thing we've ever seen. How this get made.
It's terrible for you, they all it was for me.
I love this movie. All the spice Gulls got nominated
(39:45):
as a joint nomination for the you know, the Raspberry
Awards for Worst Actress of All Time. But the fans
knew because when the movie came out, it not only
made back its budget of four million dollars, it made dollars.
That's how much movie is made for four millions, get
made back four million, and then fourteen times over that.
It's math. I kind of dot because the second billion dollars. Yeah,
(40:07):
because the fans are like, when we're want to watch
this movie over and over again, and they had made
it for the fans. So critics were saying it was shit,
and people were like, we love this movie.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
Oh my god, watch what if you just like re
enacted for me?
Speaker 1 (40:22):
I actually could. I've seen that movie, so as a kid,
I would just watch that movie on a loop. And
then they have to decide where they're going to go
to their concert or their friend goes into labor and
she's all alone because her boyfriend leaves her and they
take her to hospital. And then they're going to get
to their concept and will they make it to the
concert and perform SPICYPU Life for the first time on stage?
Oh my god, this is really stressful. It's such a thing.
(40:43):
And they had so many huge cultural moments in the
two years they were together, which I think is why
they've kind of stood the test of time. If you
could think of like the most iconic Spice Girls outfit,
what would that be. I think it's Jerry.
Speaker 2 (40:58):
It's a Union Jack. Yes, the tight dress Union.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
Jack, which is quite hot one hundred. So that is
from the nineteen ninety seven brit Awards. And again I
feel this whole podks. This is coming from us defending Jerry,
but they all had their outfits of them sorted phrages, and.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
I only know that, because that's like the classic Halloween costume.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Yeah, well it became this kind of defining thing of
the Spice Girls and for pop music in general at
that time. Yeah. So they all had their outfits sorted
for the brit Awards, which is like the Grammys in
the UK. It's like the biggest deal. And Jerry was
supposed to be wearing a very simple black dress for
their performance and for them to go on stage two
nights before. She calls up her stylist Emma and says,
(41:37):
I don't want to wear that dress. I've got a
much better idea. Oh and then she says, I'm going
over to my sister's house because she just got some
really good Union Jack teetowels that she bought it like
a little opshop for like a dollar or something. And
I'm going to turn one of those tea towels into
a dress for the brit Awards. One tea twel are
one detail details us more. Yeah. Oh yeah, and that's
(42:00):
why the dress is a mini And her Stylla said,
this is a quote from her please please please don't
do that. Why, well, you've got to think this is
the first year of the Spice Sky have been famous.
They're the biggest stars in the world. This is one
of the biggest music events in the world, and they
are going out on stage and it's a huge night
for them, and these pictures are going to be like
a defining moment for them. And this stylist has been
(42:21):
working for weeks to outfit them with all their perfect looks,
and their looks are so important, and then Jerry's like,
I'm gonna go get a tetawel Jerry. But it worked
out because she was able to fashion the teatawl into
like a micro micro mini dress, wore it out on stage,
and it just went absolutely gangbusters. It was when I
(42:42):
tell you, the stresses on the front page of every
single newspaper across the in like a good way. Yeah, okay,
well know some people are like, she's being scandalous, how
damn she put the flag on? Why is it so short?
And now people just like, this is the hottest and
most incredible thing we've ever seen. Yeah, it was insane
and it made her the standout of the night, which
in a group of like five beautiful women with these
incredible personalities is hard to do. But it was all
(43:04):
about Jerry.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
Which is so interesting, especially from a stylists point of view,
because I feel like now we know the amount of
work and thought that goes into styling those outfits, especially
for those big award shows. Like I've seen interviews of
stylists who like start little mix and like how they
all have to look individual, but they all have to
look cohesive. I mean, if you speak to me of
(43:25):
Freedom and she has a big thing about how we
all have to look the same on stage, wouldn't She
makes Scollie.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
And Jessie dress like her.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
But it's like very specific for stylists that they have
to also show their work.
Speaker 1 (43:35):
Yeah, and what they're doing exactly. This stylist, Emma was like,
this is my career on the line. Yeah, and the
last minute you're tearing up the plan. But it ended
up working in such an incredible way. And then it
was only a year later when Jerry gave the dress
away for auction for charity for breast cancer charity. She
gave it away, yeah, because she was like, let's auction
this off and make some money for breast cancer charity,
and so it was auctioned.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
She's the best one.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
It's kind of you know, they're all great I feel bad,
like I've done disservice to all of them. She's so cool.
They auctioned it off and then at the time it
was the most expensive item of pop star clothing ever
sold at auction. It went for forty one thousand dollars,
which at the time, which at the time was a
lot of money. Oh my god, you'd been like you bitch,
went out of my arms. Yeah, And it remained the
(44:19):
most expensive piece of popstar memorabilia ever sold until Michael
Jackson sold his Sequence Glove in two thousand and nine.
But until then she really held whoa. And now I
have to bring you to a really traumatizing time in
history that I remember so vividly where I was this
day when I heard this news. It's nineteen ninety eight,
(44:40):
and the world is dealt a devastating blow because Jerry
Halliwell announces she is leaving the Spice Girls. Oh my god.
They are halfway through the Spice World World tour. Halfway.
It's a milbe's birthday.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
Like, who's a duck now, bitch, Like I've had it,
and guess what my hair is that I'm ready to go.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
I'm a duck. Who's going to swim away. So Jerry
Halliwell quits the Spice Girls.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
Oh on my Welby's birthday.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
At the time, she said she was suffering from exhaustion. Well, yeah,
she's doing everything.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
She's like literally climbing, robbing their bosses. She's like hosting
them all in their car.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
Yeah, she's wearing a dressman of a teatowel to get
them more headlines. She's doing the most. She's also like
they all made headlines for different reasons. But like as again,
like Melby would be the one they went to like
events and would like jump into the crowd and do
crazy stuff. But Jerry is the one who, very famously
at an event, walked up behind Prince Charles, who was
a massive Spy Skirls fan, as was Prince William. Prince William,
(45:45):
the story goes, and he has confirmed this. When he
found out the Spy Skirls, he went to his room
and ripped all his posters down and put posters up
of Emma Bunton, that's you.
Speaker 2 (45:52):
Oh my god, William.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
And at an event Jerry had heard that they liked
them Michelle and she walked up behind Prince Charles. At
the time he was Prince Charles and then pinched his
bottom on TV. Wait, that's her own words. I'm using
who did that, Jerry? Jerry? And it became this like huge,
(46:16):
like worldwide sensation. Yeah, it's on TV. I'll find the clip.
What did he do? Nights around and other? And after
they were I can't tell you how much of his
bicycles could do whatever they want at the time, they
were so powerful. And they also did like a lot
of charity stuff with the royal family over the years,
and so they were in with the royal family. That's why,
like Victoria's like always at the royal weddings and whatnot,
(46:38):
because they were like in the in the family. And
afterwards Jerry was asked about it. They were like, why
would you do that to Prince Charles? Why would you
pinch his behind? And she was like, Oh, I pinch everyone,
Why is he any different? I'll do what I want.
She's so cool. So later on her autobiography, Jerry said
that she didn't leave because of exhaustion. Wait, so we
(47:01):
thought she left because at the time she said that
she left because of exhaustion, but she lied, yes, And
I was in primary school at the time. I mean
people cry in the playground, like some people went to
the office to go into the sick bay, like call
their parents. It was worldwide news coverage. Hotlines were set
up to like counsel people who were like really upset
by the demids of the Spice girdlers. People took personal
(47:22):
days off work, like grown adults across the world took
personal days. People were so upset about this. And later
Jerry revealed that the real reason she left the band,
and this is from her book If Only, She said,
the real reason she left the band is that she
was frustrated that she had been prevented from giving a
TV interview about surviving breast cancer in her teens. That's
(47:44):
her story. She said, I couldn't believe it. This was
about saving lives. I knew that it was over with
the band and Ginger Spice was no more.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
Oh my god, what a legend. I actually support that.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
Yeah, And well, the thing is, it's still a lot
of back and forth over something else, Like she was
obviously saying, that's obviously that's a horrific thing to happen.
But she has also since said that there was more
stuff brewing behind the scenes. There were in less wild
pressure cooker, and this is depicted in the spice Ld
the movie. They're together so much, the fame, the pressure.
They had a lot of fights and this one just
(48:18):
blew up in a huge way. So Emma Bunton later
said that they'd done a lot of shows through Europe
and they were quite nervous about going to Tour America
because that was their big market that they were trying
to sell out all these tours, and she said it
just felt like a kick in the teeth that Jerry
left us in that moment. Mel Sye said at the time,
missing Jerry is like missing your mum. You miss her,
but not the nagging. Well, you could have been a
(48:40):
mid night at her, Victoria said. Victoria's so funny. Victoria
said she was sad, but there was one big plus.
For the first time ever, I got to sing on
Wanna Bee, because she famously doesn't get to sing. She's
in that crown going like this, and Jerry has all
the singing bits, so they had to keep going with
this all.
Speaker 2 (48:58):
Like crying, like like crying over Melby's cake, and then
Victoria's like so with the songs like Ma's gonna be
getting Jerry's past.
Speaker 1 (49:08):
She's like, finally my moment. So they said relationships were
very strained for many, many years. They obviously have made
up since then. They got back together for that twenty
nineteen reunion tour. The other band members minus Victoria have
got back together for tours since then. Yeah, Victoria don't
do reunions. She doesn't do anymore. She'll hang out with them.
She's the one actually who hangs out with a lot
(49:30):
of different She will go to their events. She's the
godmother of Jerry Halliwell's daughter. Like, they're all very close.
She doesn't get on stage with them.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
The only time I saw them all together was at
her birthday, and I think it was like from David Beckham's.
Speaker 1 (49:43):
Five Yeah he was, yeah, yeah, they all hang out
together now because also Jerry has since said that she's
really sorry she left the band on Nobody's birthday. She said,
I'm sorry I left. I was just being a brat
and it's so nice now to be back with the
girls that I love. They're so cool. The Four Spice
Girls stayed together until the two thousand. They released more music,
(50:03):
but it just was never the same. So when it.
Speaker 2 (50:05):
Happened with all girl groups like when Jesse left Little Mix,
they stayed together, but it wasn't the same. And then
I think it got really bad because everyone just hated
Jesse so so much. Like it went in like the
opposite way where everyone just was so angry. Yeah, and
then like it happened to Fifth Harmony, also the same thing.
Everyone's just so angry. Like, I just think it's a
bad formula.
Speaker 1 (50:26):
It's hard. Once you get so much fame as a
group and people love you together, it's hard to keep
recreating that magic when one of you was gone, because
the magic was between all of them. They obviously wanted
to be successful, but none of their music ever reached
the heights of what The Spy Skulls did at their
time of like releasing their first album. So I always
think the Spy Skulls went from nineteen ninety six to
nineteen ninety eight because I'm calling it after Jerry left
(50:48):
the band. But again, they've reunited since then. They're all friends,
they're all successful now, and.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
Maybe they should get back together. I or do like
a hologram thing like abba. Maybe I like that because
I want to go to a Spy Skulls concert.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
Oh my god, I can't they are they reformed and
I did get to see them, Like, that's the one
thing in my life. I would love to go to
a spy skulls concept. I don't know if it's gonna happen.
Petition Torria says she won't and also Jerry won't do
that now.
Speaker 2 (51:11):
Oh but maybe if we talk to them, maybe if
we talk to me, Jerry, I know, I know you'll
do anything.
Speaker 1 (51:16):
So that is a Britly honest review. That is wild
Skirl's history. What are your thoughts now?
Speaker 2 (51:21):
This is crazy, Like it's actually crazy that, like these
women did all of that in two What.
Speaker 1 (51:28):
Does Tippy Icebog do? I could have done a twelve
part series on the whole situation. I had to cut
out a lot. I think we need to do.
Speaker 2 (51:34):
We need to find the like, even if it's by
illegal means. We'll do a Jerry, We'll find the foot.
Speaker 1 (51:40):
Anyone has the Spice World movie and you can set
we'll pay postage. Yeah, we'll send us the DVD and
then we will do a Brillian honestory of the movie,
which will be the funniest thing we've ever done.
Speaker 2 (51:48):
Oh my god, please, So.
Speaker 1 (51:50):
Anyway, Victoria Beckham's Netflix special about her fashion shows coming out.
Is Jerry going to be there? Jerry do knows goes
to her shows. Yes, So that's it. Girl power, girl power,
this girl group of all time.
Speaker 2 (52:04):
Thank you so much for listening to the Spill today.
We will be back on Monday morning with all the
that have come out from Taylor Swift's album. Make sure
you tune into that.
Speaker 1 (52:13):
Thank you so much. We will see you next week.
Bye bye.
So you're listening to a Muma Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Mama Mea acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
that this podcast is recorded on Hi.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
It's Laura Brodneck here, host of our pop culture and
entertainment podcast, The Spill, and this summer we're curating your
lowbrow playlist, bringing you our brutally honest reviews from the
top TV shows of the year, to the biggest movies
of twenty twenty five, and some of the classics that
shaped us. Every episode is giving you the Spills, completely
(00:39):
unfiltered and real takes. So your summer listening is sorted.
And if you're looking for more to listen to, every
Mamma Mea podcast is curating your summer listening right across
our network. From pop culture to beauty to powerful interviews,
there is something for everyone. Just follow the link in
our show notes from Mamma Mia. Welcome to The Spill,
(01:05):
your daily pop culture fix.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
I'm Laura Brodneck and I'm and on the show.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Today, we're doing a brutally honest review of the Spice
Girl as an entity. Just the concept, just the concept
of the Spy.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Girl and why are we doing this?
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Well, I mean this doesn't paint you in the best light,
so spillers will remember that. Recently, in an episode, we
were talking about the fact that Victoria Beckham has a
new series coming to Netflix. It's a little documentary series
really centering on the build up to her latest fashion
show in her career. Lovely fine, nice news. We like
Victoria Beckham. It should have just been a really quick segment.
(01:46):
But as we were talking about the release of this documentary,
you let the world in on a very disturbing fact
and it derailed the whole episode. And I think it's
the first time we've come quite close to a physical fight.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
I was trolled for.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
This, yeah, and so you should have been. I don't
don't believe except in this moment I had. So.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Firstly, I'm gonna say, you're gonna fucking troll me. Put
your name on your comment. Do not anonymously message me
from a fake account. Put your name on your comment.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Secondly, I didn't say I didn't know what the Spice
Girls world, you idiots.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
I said, don't be mean to live.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
I said I was never around for the big Spice
Girls thing, so I never understood it.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Okay, but you also didn't know who, like the various
Spice Girl people like you didn't know who, like Emma Bunton, baby.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Three out of the five?
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Oh which three? Do you know?
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Victoria Beckham obviously? Melby Yeah, and Jerry.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
You don't know Melcy.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Until she came into the office.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
I didn't say, yeah, I knew of the other two,
but I didn't know them. Does that make sense? Yeah?
I mean, yeah, yeah, it does. Look Look I understand
about not because I mean a lot of this really
kicked off in nineteen ninety six. Were you alive in
nineteen ninety six?
Speaker 2 (02:56):
I was coming out of my mum's vagina.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Okay, so you're busy, a bit busy, had a lot on,
so you get a little bit of a pass. But
the thing, and.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Also I was a four steps baby, so I was
pulled into the world.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
I didn't even want to come out. If it wasn't
the forces, I would know about the spice I don't
know if we can bring the medical intervention into this.
I was pulled into this world. Didn't want to be
here to deal with the antics of the spice. Spice
World movie in spics. Okay, so yeah, it wasn't the only.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Spicy World that was happening.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Okay, okay, So off the back of that, and again
we had so many listeners message us about this, get
upset about this, and so we're going to fix this today.
M We're going to fix it, and we're going to
go through a brilliant, honest review of the Spice Girl's
history and legacy.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
And I do want to say, like, apart from my
three trials, yep, everyone else was quite nice about it.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
They were just like, hey, you should know about this.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
They were like, hey, here's some learning material which I skimmed.
They called you in and they were also like, hey,
I also didn't know this. Thank you for saying it
out loud.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
No one posted that, no one posted you had to
drive public.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
It was like a little dem and I was like,
feel free to comm on this publicly and they were
like absolutely.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
No, I don't want to want to know this. We
saw your trolley. Yeah, So that's what we're going to
do today. One of the reasons I'm surprised that you
didn't know that much about them is that, yes, they
were famous many many years ago, like well over twenty
years ago now, but their legacy is still so prevalent
today and They're still referenced so much today, and I
guess all the members of the band are still very
(04:24):
famous in many different ways. So they're not one of
those kind of quick fire pop success stories that like
burned really bright and then fizzled out. They're still part
of our world. That's why I was surprised. Yeah, so
the Spies Girls actually, and a lot of people tell
me that I'm lying when I say this. I just
want to set the record straight. One of the most
interesting thing about the Spies Girls is that they were
really only together for two years.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
That is bizarre to me. All together for two years,
So what were the years they were together?
Speaker 1 (04:52):
So this is how I'm reading history. I'm doing their
start date from when Wannabe, which was their first single,
was released. It was released in nineteen ninety six, and
then I'm calling the end of the Spy Skirls when
Jerry Halliwell left the band, which was in nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Far out, so I would have been te years old,
but you would have been a kid.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Oh no, No, I was a kid, but the spy
skills were for the kids before I was in primary school,
Like I barely knew what the world was but I
knew the Spice Girls because their faces were over T
shirts and all the shopping centers, Like everyone at school
would wear their Spy Skull T shirts on free dress
days to the musty days. Oh no, that's not the coins.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
I think free dressed because you can wear whatever you.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Want, you free away whatever you want. That makes sense,
And like we would all watch the Spy Skills on
TV and listen to their music. The first CD I
ever bought as a kid was a Spy Sgirl's album,
and I got it for Christmas and my mum had
a little portable CD player in her bedroom and if
I wanted to listen to it, I had to walk
my little CD in and take it out of its
case and put it in the CD player and I
would just listen to those songs for hours and hours.
(05:55):
My friends and I would all do the dances at school.
We'd all pick a Spice Girl. That's the thing. They
were this like kind of almost like a cartoonish, you know,
because they had everyone had their own look, and they
were like really poppy. It's like how kids today dressed
in like like eazy, really tiny little kids listening into
Taylor Swift and dressed like her, different areas and stuff.
That was the Spice Girls. Oh wow, for adults and
(06:15):
kids alike. They were for everyone. Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
That yeah, comparison, This is the first time, like Colpow,
what could that be?
Speaker 1 (06:22):
I hadn't even watched Buffy yet. I wasn't introduced to
like superheroes and stuff so cute.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
So you know who that was for me when I
was a kid.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Who don't it's okay.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Nicki Webster, Oh okay, Strawberry Kisses. It was Nicki Webster.
And then like Guys Sebastian and Shannon No, wow, was
the first like Australian.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
It was such a homegrowing.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Oh my god, I spent so much money voting for
Guy Sebastian an Australian items.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Well it worked. Parents are so sad next time we
see him an event because he's you know who's always
at an event is Guys Sebastian and Nicki Webster. I
see Nicky Webster at every single event I go to.
The last time I was on a dance fall till
three am, it was me and Nicky Webster and her
two children who were the same height as her. Yeah,
she's so had and I also once was crying in
a musical and this girl turner right in front of me.
I just think to be like, is this woman okay
(07:07):
behind me? Because she's crying and she's overcome with the music.
It was Nicky webstill looking at me. Nicky Webster. Every
time I walk an event, I see her. She doesn't
know who I am. It's very parasocial relationship.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
She's at legend, Like I know he's a legend. The
female football team, the Matilda's, that's their team song.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
It's one Kisses. I'm so across that scene.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
So anyway, that was like because I always assumed spice
girls were for like teenage girls or like girls in
their twenties, which I'm sure they were for, but I
remember so specifically being like five years old and seeing
what the older girls were listening to, and it was
Nicky Webster and I was like, oh, okay, okay, Webster
is a thing.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Well back in nineteen ninety six, as I said, the
spy skills were for everyone, Like you put that music
on a class and like I was like, yes, the
minute you hear what I really want. It's like teaching
some students like what good is that song?
Speaker 2 (07:54):
So good, Like it's like, hold up at every single wedding.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
There's so many spic skirl songs I listened to still
on a weekly basis. So want to be spicedopy life?
Who you think you are to become one? Like? So many?
So the Spy Skirls Are released three studio albums and
they said all kinds of crazy records which we were
going to get into, But I'm going to take you
right back to the start, before we get through the
trauma of people leaving the band, backlash and that sort
of thing, to nineteen ninety four. You have yet to
(08:20):
be pulled from your mother's woman's by four sets of
that stage. I don't even think my parents are dating.
In nineteen ninety four in London, many many, many young
women gather in this tiny little dance work studios because
they have all seen a tiny little advert in the stage,
which was where you like see jobs and stuff in
the stage newspaper advertising for a girl band. This was
(08:44):
the first really big manufactured girl band where like a
group of producers and a company got together and they're like,
we are going to audition women and we're going to
put them in advance.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
So it's like can you sing?
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Can you dance? Are you pretty? Yeah? Pretty much? That
is the makeup. Is it kind of like what they
did with Bardo? Yes? No, no, Bardo is like based
off all those reality shows and things like Bardo, all
those manufactured pop groups all based off the Spice Girls.
Because it works so well that time. So the advert
goes out in the stage newspaper and dozens and dozens
and dozens of young women turn up to the auditions
(09:15):
where they all split into groups of ten and they
do a dance routine that they are taught in the moment. Afterwards,
they each have to go on stage, and it was
the father son management team, Bob and Chris Herbert, who
were doing all the auditions, and they all had to
get up on stage and do a quick song and
dance routine for them Dallas Cowboys, yeah, or even just
(09:36):
like pop stars and Barto put together. This is the
kind of formation they use. It's like group singing and
then they get sent away and then you come back.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
I got the chills from my performance days. I used
to play piano, so if they were looking for a pianist,
I would have been right there.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
I just don't know if you would have made the cart.
I don't if I would have made the cart. Hey
I can hold a tune. But a month later a
group of girls were invited back for a second they'd
made it through the second round, like out of the
fifty sixty who auditioned, ten girls were called back, and
in that group was Jerry Halliwell. Now Jerry Halliwell is
interesting because she didn't make it to the first open
call audition because she was very ill and had a
(10:12):
sunburn because she'd been on holiday.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
She was ill from her sunburn.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Yeah, you can get you can get it if you
get a.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Really good poisoning.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
I don't know if there's a doctor specificate to say.
How about it was, so she'd been in Spain, she
got a sunburn, she couldn't go on an audition, and she
wasn't feeling well. And Victoria Beckham's the one who has
told this story in her memoir is that she called
the company who was doing the cattle call auditions and
pleaded and begged to be allowed to come back into
the second round. And that's the fun thing about Jerry
Halliwell and why she's the spy skull that I've started
(10:42):
relating to the most because she was never the best dancer,
the best singer, the best anything like that. She was
just the one who pushed the hardest. And I really
related to that because personally, I'm not really great at anything.
I just do a lot of prep. So even if
you kind of read all the spic Skirls biographies of
all the audition stages of Jerry Halliwell getting into the
band and afterwards when they were kind of deciding like
(11:04):
who would be the lead singer there, and who would
be like the front of the dance and all this
sort of stuff, very Helluwell often had the worst marks
out of all the girls. They used to score them
every time they got to a rehearsal. They would score
them out of ten and be like individually for dance,
looks and singing. And she was always really low and
she would sometimes like go in the corner and start sobbing,
and I would tell her to get it together.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Oh my god, she's I reckon. She's living the life
out of.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
All of them than I was, because she married rich.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Married, rich married, and f on principle not anymore though. Yeah,
lives on a beautiful farm and she always wears white
and beige because it shows that, like that's the type
of work. If you can like confidently wear the color
white every day of your life, you're not doing much.
And that's kind of what I want to aspy it.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Yeah, it just looks like you've never lifted a finger
in your life. That's a very different Jolly Harry Well.
Back in the day, she was a scrappy kind of
like go getter, and they said, once she got on stage,
you were just drawn to watching her, and that's how
she got through to the final stages. So once they
had finished all of these auditions, they formed the band
and it was Victoria Beckham, Melanie Chisholm, Melanie Brown, Jerry
(12:11):
Halliwell and Michelle Stephenson.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
A lot of these names sound very confusing to me.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
So one of those names is not famous. I was
gonna say, do you know what? I thought it was
going to be like a big mic drop, that you
would be like, who the hell is Michelle Stevenson, the
original Spice Girl. She made it through the auditions and apparently, no, no, no,
it's so much worse. It's so much worse than that.
So she made it through to the audition stage and
they had the band. So it was the two melanies,
(12:37):
it was Jerry, it.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Was holding I'm stressed and it's like pulse.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Jerry is Victoria Victoria Beckham. People say she can't sing,
score the highest all through the auditions, so she can
sing apparently, allegedly we haven't really seen it since then,
but apparently she scored very very high. And Michelle Stevenson,
who scored incredibly high across the board and came from
like a very prestigious performing arts.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Wait, I thought you counted five. That's five, So who's missing?
Speaker 1 (13:02):
No?
Speaker 2 (13:02):
No, no, so wait wait, wait, wait, say the names again.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
So the two Melanies, Jerry and Victoria and Michelle Stevenson
are in the band. They made it through.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
So where's Emma?
Speaker 1 (13:14):
So they go said, I know we're getting to m
So then they start rehearsing and the company starts putting
them together, and as they sort of start forming who
the band will be, and like these are going to
be the songs and this is how we're going to
dance all these things, they won't even call the Spice
Girls yet. Michelle Stevenson says, I don't want to do
this anymore, and she leaves the band. Oh my god,
(13:35):
the worst mistake she's ever made. And she said she
didn't like the music, she didn't like the routine, she
didn't like the everything about it. She's like, it wasn't
for me. Michelle Stevenson has given a lot of interviews
since then because unfortunately for her, she did not become famous,
and she has you look so stressed.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Right now because I get other interviews about how you
fumble the biggest bag ever.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Well, She's like, of course, I regret I'm not a
multi millionaire like them, and I would have loved to
be that famous and have that fandom. But she's also
said like, at the time when I left, I thought
I was doing the right thing. It just wasn't my
kind of music and they were not living the lifestyle
I wanted I did. Yeah, so she left when they
wanted doing interviews about it. She's done many interviews over
the years, so everyone wants to know, like, who was
(14:15):
the original Spy S girl who left just before they
hit the big time and then she was replaced by
Emma Bunton who went on to be Baby Spice, who
was like a performer but obviously not also not famous.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
So did she go through the audition processes too, and
she was just like the next on the list.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
No, no, she didn't. They just she was like a ring
and they brought in later. Oh my god, so now
we have our band. We're seeing like the worst luck
and the best luck played out in front of you.
Emma Bunton getting a phone called hello. They're like, do
you want to come and be in this like girl
group putting together? And she's like, I guess, I what
nothing else? So I guess. So she kind of slipped
in and Michelle slipped out and then yeah, Michelle, Yeah,
(14:49):
but also maybe if she'd say, they wouldn't have been
the Spice Girls. It's hard to know, but yeah, it's
it would have been hard to know that you were
selected to be in the biggest girl group of all
time and then you decided to leave just before they
found their momentum.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
That's like some significant message from the universe.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Yeah. Ah, so god, I'm so sad. It's so sad
for me. Want to find Michelle Stevenson online somewhere and like, Lida, please.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Michelle if you're listening, because I know you probably might be.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
You've got some time we hear. Oh no, I was.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Gonna say something really mean, say it may go on.
I was gonna say, I just know she has her
notifications on for SEO for her name, so she will be.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Yeah, I think. So we said, look, it's not too late, Michelle.
You can go and do something. You could be a
podcast host.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Michelle y easy, it's really easy.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
So then we have our five girls and they're not
yet really the Spice Girls, and they are put an
apartment together and apartment yeah, like all living in one
apartment together. And then they move to like a little
house and all together. Yeah h they have literally no money.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Maybe Michelle made the right choice.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
This what I'm saying, This is nineteen ninety four. Waa
BE doesn't come out till nineteen ninety six. There's a
bit of time in there where they're like living and
working for these two men Bob and Chris Herbert, and
all of these men, Bob and Chris Herbert, I mean
they're the ones who kind of found them. So they
kind of found the father and son father and sign
management duo.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
So an O G NEPO situation.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
And then as they're sort of telling the Spice Girls
what to do, how to dress, what they're going to
see how they're going to perform and like making them
work these long hours. The spy s girls start to
hate Bob and Chris and they're like, you know what,
we're great, there's something here, but we need to get
away from these men. Yeah, And so.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
It doesn't send them to most women saying the exactly
least one, we need to get away from the we're
great and we need to get away from these men.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Yeah, because they kind of realized that there was something
like quite magic and interesting women notoriously smart. Yeah, this
is the best. This is the opposite of the Michelle
Stevenson this situation. It's like a very smart decision.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
It's like we're leaving Michelle leaving YouTube as well.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
So they decide that they're gonna get away from Bob
and Chris. How did they escape because they hadn't signed
a contract.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Oh smart girls.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
But but Bob and Chris had the master recording, has
the master recordings, and we theron, no, it's so much
worse than for Wanna Be and to become one the
songs that were gone to be two of their biggest
songs ever. And they're like, if we don't have those songs.
(17:26):
We can't leave because those songs are our ticket to
like getting radio playing any management.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
So such good songs.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
This is what Victoria Beckham has written in her autobiography,
and I don't want to call her a liar, but
I just can't see how this story is possibly thick
down the door. This is you got to think this
is the nineties, so to take the Masters. The Masters
is a physical copy. So apparently Jerry went into the
office and physically stole the Master recordings. Yeah. In her biography,
(17:52):
Victoria Beckham said it was like very Bonnie and Clyde,
and then after.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Clyde, it sounds like Jerry was on one God, I'm so,
I'm so tired. Someone else please, They're like.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
So they won't Jo. It's like you've got this, Jerry.
Yeah exactly. They're like, go on, I haven't told you
the worst part of that story yet, which is like
when she went into steal the physical copy of the
Masters Halliwell said no, no, that when she ran out
with them, she said, I put them in my nickers
so that Bob and Chris couldn't like chase her down
to get them away from her.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
That's entrepreneurial that is, and that's what that's called being
a what what size our masters?
Speaker 1 (18:35):
I'm thinking of vinyls. Yes, I'm thinking they were like
a cassette tape. Oh school, this was got it. Yeah,
so that's the story they're telling. So no contract, We've
got the masters and we're physically running. Then they was
working from the back of Jerry Swift. Just do that.
She runs into school. Why do you have to get
us all involved in this situation. It's like you could
(18:57):
have just put them in your knickers, like it's it's
good enough for Jerry halliwell, it's enough for you. Taylor
switch Well needs.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
To do like a school, yeah, school of mastership.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Yeah. And now you see he is this prim and
proper rich woman, and I'm like, what a legend working
walking the streets in her white dress and like you
just remember what she was.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
She's gonna have the best stories for her kids.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Yeah, you just know it. Yeah. I think she's trying
to have most of them buried. So then so then
the women have their masters, but they have their management
and no money and no prospects and no contacts, and
they're being pride and prejudice. They're unmarriable and they're working
from the back of Jerry's beat up car because they
(19:35):
can't even afford like a studio, like we have nowhere
to stay. And then they were all just looking at Jr.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
And just like get in the car and it was
all just the five of them sleeping in the car.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
And then they started to build a new team and
they eventually signed with Simon Fuller, who is very very
he was Annie Lennox's manager at the time. He's a
very huge name music, very well known and I know
one okay good. Yeah, he's the one who really went
on to like make the Spice Girls, and he was
the one who was like met them, saw their potential,
listen to the Stolen Masters that Jerry pulled out of
around where he then was like, I'm going to make
(20:11):
this happen for you guys and get you in the
studio to record more music. I'm going to introduce you
to record labels. And this is when they sort of
started becoming the band that we saw as The Spice Girl.
But it wasn't all rosy. It sounds like they were
like all best friends for the start.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
They were not oh yeah, okay, I have a theory, Okay.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Was it like split down the middle? Yeah, it was
two against three. I'm gonna hate what I'm about to
tell you. It was four against one. No, oh my god.
When she left that we're just like, we don't story.
(20:54):
I didn't realize how that it wasn't so until I
started telling you the story. She stole the masters by herself.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Well, to be honest, I basically like put the masters
where masters should never be put.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
She let them all sleep in her car, and the
like what after.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
All of that, we just don't like you.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Yeah, look to be fair, some of them also hated Victoria.
So in Melby's book. Again, I'm getting all this information
from their books.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
It's while that we have to read all of their
autobiographies and then piece together.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
That's what I've done, because there's so many rumors about them,
and there's so many unauthorized Like when I was six,
I saved up all my pocket money to go to
the Scholastic book fair at school and I bought the
unauthorized autobiography of the Spice Girls. And let me tell you,
that thing was four wise. I realized now full of propaganda.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
It was written by the two guys. What are the
names Bob and Jim. The whole biography is just like
and that's why women suck. That's why women should be
given because they break into your studio and still watch.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Belogs to you exactly so. In her book, Melby said
that she thought Emma was a softy and lovely Everyone
likes Emma. That's why I'm called GDM. Sometimes everyone likes
softy and lovely. Yeah, only on the outside, and once
you know, get to know you, it's less that She's
like Victoria, who they all called Vicky at the time
until she asked them to stop. They thought Vicky was
a bit of a snob, and they all thought Jerry
(22:19):
was a loud mouth in their books Emma, Victoria and
the Print. In all of their books and interviews since, Emma,
Victoria and Melsey have all called Jerry a complete nutter
in like a mean way. They're all best friends now,
like they became best friends. That was just their initial
(22:39):
And here's their reasoning. Because she's a redhead. Yes, that's why. No,
he's their reasoning. We thought she was a bit strange
because she had her hair and bunches and was wearing
it and yeah, you have to tie her up when
you're about to commit a crime.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
I'm sorry, you can't have your hair out. Imagine convincing Jerry,
do you steal the masters, It'll be fine for you.
She goes to tie her up, and they're like, ooh,
ooh god, I don't think she'd be doing that, did you?
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Guys? See how she tied up her hair when she
just steal out of music back for us. That's crazy.
I know.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
She's like literally like an event, like crawling through.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
That's the worst fight. Why is the worst? These women?
I've been through so much. It's nineteen ninety six, dude. No,
we're still in nineteen ninety five and I'm not there. Yeah,
I've got so many years to go. Okay, I can't
believe they said when they first met her and then
she would tire her and bunches. She would wear a pink,
fuffy jumper and say, look look I'm a duck. Okay,
(23:43):
that's on, Jerry, Jerry, I can't. I can't. It's like
I keep standing up at you like this, if you're
just defending her and defending her and defending her, and
then that happened, and.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Then that happens. Yeah, it's okay, Jerry, you kind of
deserve that one.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
But they all became friends really quickly after, right, So
they had that in a sentence, Look, look I'm a duck. Yeah,
and Jerry has never disputed that she said that. Oh
I think she's just trying to have a fun time. Well,
it would be a pretty bizarre line. And she's like,
you know what, there's my wife. I'm not going to
stand it for that's what Melby said. She said, Okay, Melby,
(24:17):
she was there. Then they started bonding because they were
all away from their families, they had no money, and
Victoria Beckham, they were trying to talk her out of
marrying a very unsuitable man at the time. They were
just about to become super famous, David Beckham. No, I'm sorry.
I was like they hated Beckham. No, they love David
be cheat on her. They're like, protect David at all costs.
(24:38):
In the very early days of the Spice Girls, You'll
notice a very interesting thing if you look in the
credit section is that Victoria is called Victoria Adams Wood
because her fiance at the time that was his last name,
Mark Wood. Who's that. So they had been together for
nearly six years. She's twenty one at this time, I
feel like, Brad, Yeah, and I'm kidding, some people can
(25:02):
get married. I'm sorry, but it's just because she was like, no,
I'm going to marry this guy and I'm going to
use his name on all and they're about to make
get big, so whatever name, they have to be strategic. Yeah,
And the other girls were like Vicki and she's like,
don't call me that. Like, okay, Victoria, Victoria, you're not
even married to this guy. You've been together for a while. Yes,
he's proposed to you. He proposed to her just after
(25:23):
the Spy. She made it through the Spice Girls auditions.
I don't want to cast a spurse.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
It sounds like a very Melby type of conversation, like
I can see her having.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
So Mark was like he wanted her to like kind
of focus on his career because he was also on
the up and up. He installed burglar alarms in people's homes. Wait,
he was like, I think it should be about me.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
He's like, he's like this a woman named Jerk.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
He's breaking.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
And she always has his hair tied up exactly in
bunche of.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
So wait, so he was up and coming in the
burglar and she had just made it into what was
going to be the Spice Girls, and she was using
his name as her name because she's like, no, he
also been to marry him. I said, yes, we've been
together for so long. And she was really going to
like put her a lot of her career on hold
to make or that she was married to this man,
and the other Spy Skulls talked her out of it.
Do not marry this guy, especially right now. We're about
(26:14):
to go on to world tour. We're about to sell
these alb about to get on the plane, and so
she said. She broke up with him just as the
Spy Skulls were starting to take off, saying it was
a mistake, but she kept the ring because she said
it was a sick ring. Oh that's so rochter. I
love that. So we love Victoria Beckham. Oh that's so cool. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
No, they have to keep the band together. They can
be VICKI, even though we know you don't like that name.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
You can't leave us with a duck. Duck Girls, if
anything swap And you've got to remember she was the
highest scorer from the auditions, although they famously didn't let
her sing on a lot of their biggest songs. So
do you think they.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Didn't let us sing because they were jealous because she
was a highest scorer?
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Not? Well, the thing is when you listen to them
all sing, like they can all sing quite well. Melcy's
definitely got the best voice, Like far away, She's say Spice,
Yes she is sporty Spices. What a beautiful segway. How
they got their nicknames so a big part of why
the spy Skirls were so successful, apart from the fact
that they just had bad songs. But that's not always enough.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
That's true, like you need to put your life out there.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Yeah, exactly. But they were just so marketable because they
came out of the gates so strong with all these personas,
and everyone could pick which spic Skirl were you, and
they looked so incredible together, like I said, almost like
something out of a wild cartoon. They also did more
marketing in the two years they were together than most
bands do in decades. They just said yes to pretty
much every single endorsement deal.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
So, which is why it's like so wild when you
told me that they actually only lasted two years. Yeah,
because I remember being a kid and having like getting
Total Girl magazine, and there was always a which spice
girl are you quiz? It was the biggest I'm It
just would have been like mid two thousands, like friendships.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Were brought together and then ended in the school yard
over which spy school you were, because you know, if.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
You stand baby, yeah, and we know you're posh.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Yeah yeah, yeah, Well I guess I'm Jerry?
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Which was which one did everyone want to be at
the time, So like sometimes people want to be Baby,
A lot of people wanted to be posh, some people
wanted to be Jerry. It was also at a time
where like sometimes the sporty girls weren't as popular as
they were now, so not everyone wanted to be sporty,
and all of the time, no one wanted to be scary,
which is hard because as you get older, like she
was like really the best one, yeah in terms of
(28:22):
like stage presents and everything, and even like her voice,
Like I feel like when I listened to Spy Skull songs,
I could easily pick out which one was Melby.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Yeah she's got a real place. Yeah, we love her now.
But so the names were actually given to them by
a magazine called Top of the Pops. Which was a huge,
huge magazine at the time, and so the editors has
given quite a few interviews Michelle Michelle burn book and
(28:51):
made them even more famous, just like damn it. I
tried to take it down. So I got this straight
from the BBC because I was like, I feel like
they will have the correct information and I was trying
to Again, there's a lot of false stories about how
the spic Skulls got their name, but it was from
Top of the Pops and the editor, Peter Lorraine, has
given interviews since about it, and he said the names
just jumped out at us. The girls were first starting
to get famous because they had they were already dressing
(29:12):
in very distinct ways. He said, Posh was the first
one we thought of because Victoria looks pretty sophisticated, fair
and he goes. The rest were pretty easy because all
their characters were really strong. Because we've since kind of
realized there's quite a lot of racial undertones. Yes, he said,
we laughed the most when we came up with Scary.
Then he throws a stuff meanbront of the bus. Jennifer Cawthorne,
(29:33):
who was also from Leeds, which is where Melby is from,
came up with that one because Melby was so loud
and had tried to take over our whole photo shoot,
which also was a thing like Melby was the one
that Spice girls were always notoriously very very hard to interview.
They gave so much, like all your content with them,
from what I've heard from all these journalists, was insanely good.
(29:54):
But you couldn't plan anything they showed it for a
photo shoot that would tear the entire room apart. Start
Like chasing the cameramen around, making jokes, live tea with
them is like insane. They would just say anything, and
Melby was often the instigator of the big moments. That's
why they called her scary.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
But also you can't call the like woman of color
in young group scary Spice, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
Because peoplere like, oh, she's so scary, And I was like,
they're all doing weird stuff. Jerry's over there and a
duck jump up and that erring people her scary Bob, Yeah,
I would say. Victoria Beckham had that icy stare she looked,
and she famously never smiled. I was like, if anyone's scary,
it's her. I'd much rather hang out with Melby, but
(30:38):
they were their names. And then in nineteen ninety seven,
when they were sort of coming up with like they
were starting to take over their branding more, they wanted
to change their names. They're like personas Melby and people
laugh at her about this, But now that we saw
the racial undertones, I can kind of see her point.
Melby wanted to stop being scary Spice, and she wanted
to be abrupt Spice, which doesn't really roll at the
(31:00):
same abrupt abrupt spa I'm so bright, Oh yeah, yeah,
emmam wanted to be gets away with murder Spie too
many words, it's too must have downs missed the port
of the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
That's the way would murder and Victoria.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Suggests should poss posh half the time Spice Oh soo
too manyone. In private, Jerry thought Melby should be called
the Ox. Jerry, she missed the point he's doing. Like
Melby wrote this in her book, She said, Jerry said,
I should be called the Ox because I could operate
(31:34):
perfectly on the most outrageous hangover, or even do a
full performance effortlessly after several bottles of champagne, or while
she would be throwing up in the loop. Oh my god,
I don't know if the ox rolls off the tongue.
Well maybe these girls were good at marketing, just not
in that moment.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
I think Jerry maybe was a bit like, Hey, I
am sick of being near only animal.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
I don't want to be a duck anymore. Can someone
else be another animal? Now we're into their first single,
could you be?
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Oh my god, they've already gone through so much.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
They have gone through this thing. There's no such thing
as an overnight success. Two years later, Wanna Bee cames
out absolute banger over song has absolutely stood the test
of time, one of the best songs in the world.
Want to Be I don't even feel like that's going
out a limb to say that, because we're still singing
it so much to this day. Everyone still quotes it
when the record label.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
The lyrics don't even make any sense. That's how it's
such a good song, Like if it be my love,
you have to get with my friend.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
But I think they mean like, you have to also
be friends with my friends.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
You have to hook up with my friends.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
Yeah. Oh that's great too. Yeah, So just a reminder,
they've stolen this song and brought it over to this
new record. True, that's true. They've done the money, they
give it to the record label, and the record label says,
we love you guys, we love you as a band.
They did this stunt where like when they were signing
to the record label, they sent a car full of
blob dolls to the record studio and the dolls like
carded through the studio and then were thrown into the
(32:54):
river nearby where they floated for days. And they were like,
got to sign these ladies. They're amazing, and they said
we love you guys. We're not releasing want to Be.
That's a bad song, Jerry. She put in all that,
like it's too weird, it doesn't make any sense, it's
not catchy. They'd already shot the music video. They hated
the music video, and they also said they had already
(33:16):
been in touch with BBC Radio. BBC Radio refused to play, and.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
The other four were like, god damn it, Jerry, Yeah,
how dare you?
Speaker 1 (33:25):
And so and a bunch of also TV stations were
refusing to play it.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Imagine if we never had wann to be.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Imagine, I don't want to live. It would be a
really sad world. I don't even think I'd be here,
the whole lives would be different.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Might still be here trying to get pulled out.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
Yeah, bring it back to that. But the girls say
that they knew better, and they said it's non negotiable.
Wanna Be is our first single or we walk pretty
much and the song came out and we've done it before,
we'll do it again, I mean, I think, And these
are not empty threats and we've got nothing to lose
(34:00):
because we're living out of a.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Car, living out of Jerry's car, who we hate.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
So pick your battles. And then in July nineteen ninety six,
Want to Be was released and it spent seven weeks
at number one in the UK and four weeks number
one in the US and went on to become a
huge global hit across the world.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
And they were like, we've told you so, Jerry.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Yeah, we told you exactly.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Get Oh my god, okay, so you have want to Be?
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Yes? And so then life gets absolutely crazy for the
Spy Skulls. They go on world tours, they release more music,
they have this intense fandom around them where people were like,
we haven't seen this since the Beatles. It is crazy.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
What was like, was it like the same level of
Taylor Swift concept.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Yeah, I mean obviously there's a kind of I don't
know if it was. It was kind of the level
of that he would have been too young to be
able to go. Oh no, god, no, I've never seen
the Spy Skulls lie. And did I do world Yeah? Yeah,
you know they did world tours. Like just remember they've
only got two years to squeeze this in. They did
a lot than two years. They did world tours. I
guess they would sell out when they would go to events,
like the streets would be lined with fans trying to
(35:09):
like breakdown barriers. I guess in a way it was
Tailor Swift. It is hard because obviously, with Taylor Swift,
we've got so much documentation of what happens in those
concerts of fans and like we can see the intensity
when tickets go on sale. But I guess, like it was, yeah,
people would like sleep out for days overnight to get
Spicekulls tickets. And they just became so so so huge
that they did become like the biggest band in the world.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
That's insane.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
And they thought we've released all of these hit singles,
all our albums sell out, all of our tours sell out.
We've got our name on every single product across the world.
They just went with more is more and they just
said yes to every single endorsement deal that came along.
That's why their face was just plast They're like, you know,
some people are like, oh, what I use the product,
my integrity, I'm not putting my name on that. They're like,
put it on everything. The more you see us, the better.
(35:53):
And it worked for them.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
Whoa, And that's how you do it.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
And that's how they made so much money. And then
when you're the biggest pop stars in the world and
all your songs are successful and everyone's dressing like you,
what do you do next? Like? What be your move to?
Speaker 2 (36:07):
Also like keep going to kid.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
The momentum going what what can you achieve next? Oh?
Have a YouTube channel? The correct answer is release a
movie which brings us to spice up your world. No,
the Spice World, Spice World, Spy World, the movie the movie. Yeah,
not spice up your world.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
No spice Spice of your Life is a song Spice
up your Life.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
The Spice World movie I can only describe as just
being a fantastic piece of cinema that the world was
not ready for.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
We're still not like, you can't find it anywhere.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
We can't find it anywhere.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
I thought it was on Prime Video, but I realized
it was just Amazon trying to sell me a DVD.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
And you know what, we need to get that DVD.
We'll expense it to the company because you need to
watch Spice Wort. I think it's like eighty dollars. Yeah,
that's fine. That's a bargain in this world, in this economy,
because it's I think it's been scrubbed from every channel.
I can't find it anywhere. I haven't be able to
find it for like fifteen years. As a kid, I
think we're.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
Doing this as Jerry Jerry watch.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
So around like nineteen ninety seven or so, they've been
famous for every year. The girls are getting all these
offers from Hollywood, and offer is from Disney to do
a film Disney, and you think, yes, Disney would be great,
but Disney wanted to Disney fire the Spice Girls, and
so the story wasn't going to be so much about
the Spice Girl like high school musical, as it was
going to be about a young single mother of one
(37:23):
of the girls fighting to form the band. Ough, Yeah,
that's terrible.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
No unless mother was Jerry, Like she was the only
one who was.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
They went with a different writing team. They're basically like,
we're not doing like a big studio like Disney. We're
going to make this sort of like the difference. Again.
That is why the girl power message really took off,
because they lived that in every moment of their lives.
They were just like, we're calling the shots, we're doing it.
And were they always on the same page in these decisions. No,
there's things where like you hear them like disagreeing on
(37:53):
things and like, ultimately that is what led to their demise.
But they were all very much on the same page
that the movie was going to be more true to
their style. So they got a whole bunch of writers
in who came up with this story about So con't
seen the movie, but it's like they're playing themselves, but
it's a falized version of themselves where they have reached
this huge amount of fame and they're building up to
(38:15):
doing this big live concert. But it has all these
like kind of true stories interwoven with it, where one
of their like best friends from before they became famous.
Is like about to have a baby, and like they're
not spending enough time with her. Their managements trying to
turn them into something they're not. They're dealing with these
unscrupulous journalists. Elton John makes a cameo. They get abducted
by aliens at one stage. It's an incredible surrealist comedy
(38:37):
that no one appreciated at the time. Oh no, I
love that.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
So Cada reminds me of like the Jonas Brothers when
they had their show Jonas Brothers.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
Kind of like that, and they had this tool bus
on the outside where they live on the bus in
the movie and upgraded from Joe's car exactly. And it's
so incredible because outside this is a normal bus. When
you get inside, it's like the size of this office
and they all have their own the bus that is
liked of like.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
Harry Potter when they go on that tank and it's
like massive on the inside.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
It's exactly like Harry Potter. Oh my god, Oh my god.
The crossover we didn't know we needed. So could they
act well, you know what was that part of the audition. No,
they're playing themselves, so they didn't need to actually they're
playing caricatures of themselves, so they actually act incredibly well
given the fact that they're just them. Okay, the movie
comes out. I wish we could do that, and critics
will stay tuned in fort the spill for the movie.
(39:24):
And we're also getting the world. Can't imagine were getting
copyright for that. So the movie comes out and critics
who ruin everything not to slam my people, absolutely savage.
It worst thing we've ever seen. How this get made.
It's terrible for you, they all it was for me.
I love this movie. All the spice Gulls got nominated
(39:45):
as a joint nomination for the you know, the Raspberry
Awards for Worst Actress of All Time. But the fans
knew because when the movie came out, it not only
made back its budget of four million dollars, it made dollars.
That's how much movie is made for four millions, get
made back four million, and then fourteen times over that.
It's math. I kind of dot because the second billion dollars. Yeah,
(40:07):
because the fans are like, when we're want to watch
this movie over and over again, and they had made
it for the fans. So critics were saying it was shit,
and people were like, we love this movie.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
Oh my god, watch what if you just like re
enacted for me?
Speaker 1 (40:22):
I actually could. I've seen that movie, so as a kid,
I would just watch that movie on a loop. And
then they have to decide where they're going to go
to their concert or their friend goes into labor and
she's all alone because her boyfriend leaves her and they
take her to hospital. And then they're going to get
to their concept and will they make it to the
concert and perform SPICYPU Life for the first time on stage?
Oh my god, this is really stressful. It's such a thing.
(40:43):
And they had so many huge cultural moments in the
two years they were together, which I think is why
they've kind of stood the test of time. If you
could think of like the most iconic Spice Girls outfit,
what would that be. I think it's Jerry.
Speaker 2 (40:58):
It's a Union Jack. Yes, the tight dress Union.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
Jack, which is quite hot one hundred. So that is
from the nineteen ninety seven brit Awards. And again I
feel this whole podks. This is coming from us defending Jerry,
but they all had their outfits of them sorted phrages, and.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
I only know that, because that's like the classic Halloween costume.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Yeah, well it became this kind of defining thing of
the Spice Girls and for pop music in general at
that time. Yeah. So they all had their outfits sorted
for the brit Awards, which is like the Grammys in
the UK. It's like the biggest deal. And Jerry was
supposed to be wearing a very simple black dress for
their performance and for them to go on stage two
nights before. She calls up her stylist Emma and says,
(41:37):
I don't want to wear that dress. I've got a
much better idea. Oh and then she says, I'm going
over to my sister's house because she just got some
really good Union Jack teetowels that she bought it like
a little opshop for like a dollar or something. And
I'm going to turn one of those tea towels into
a dress for the brit Awards. One tea twel are
one detail details us more. Yeah. Oh yeah, and that's
(42:00):
why the dress is a mini And her Stylla said,
this is a quote from her please please please don't
do that. Why, well, you've got to think this is
the first year of the Spice Sky have been famous.
They're the biggest stars in the world. This is one
of the biggest music events in the world, and they
are going out on stage and it's a huge night
for them, and these pictures are going to be like
a defining moment for them. And this stylist has been
(42:21):
working for weeks to outfit them with all their perfect looks,
and their looks are so important, and then Jerry's like,
I'm gonna go get a tetawel Jerry. But it worked
out because she was able to fashion the teatawl into
like a micro micro mini dress, wore it out on stage,
and it just went absolutely gangbusters. It was when I
(42:42):
tell you, the stresses on the front page of every
single newspaper across the in like a good way. Yeah, okay,
well know some people are like, she's being scandalous, how
damn she put the flag on? Why is it so short?
And now people just like, this is the hottest and
most incredible thing we've ever seen. Yeah, it was insane
and it made her the standout of the night, which
in a group of like five beautiful women with these
incredible personalities is hard to do. But it was all
(43:04):
about Jerry.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
Which is so interesting, especially from a stylists point of view,
because I feel like now we know the amount of
work and thought that goes into styling those outfits, especially
for those big award shows. Like I've seen interviews of
stylists who like start little mix and like how they
all have to look individual, but they all have to
look cohesive. I mean, if you speak to me of
(43:25):
Freedom and she has a big thing about how we
all have to look the same on stage, wouldn't She
makes Scollie.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
And Jessie dress like her.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
But it's like very specific for stylists that they have
to also show their work.
Speaker 1 (43:35):
Yeah, and what they're doing exactly. This stylist, Emma was like,
this is my career on the line. Yeah, and the
last minute you're tearing up the plan. But it ended
up working in such an incredible way. And then it
was only a year later when Jerry gave the dress
away for auction for charity for breast cancer charity. She
gave it away, yeah, because she was like, let's auction
this off and make some money for breast cancer charity,
and so it was auctioned.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
She's the best one.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
It's kind of you know, they're all great I feel bad,
like I've done disservice to all of them. She's so cool.
They auctioned it off and then at the time it
was the most expensive item of pop star clothing ever
sold at auction. It went for forty one thousand dollars,
which at the time, which at the time was a
lot of money. Oh my god, you'd been like you bitch,
went out of my arms. Yeah, And it remained the
(44:19):
most expensive piece of popstar memorabilia ever sold until Michael
Jackson sold his Sequence Glove in two thousand and nine.
But until then she really held whoa. And now I
have to bring you to a really traumatizing time in
history that I remember so vividly where I was this
day when I heard this news. It's nineteen ninety eight,
(44:40):
and the world is dealt a devastating blow because Jerry
Halliwell announces she is leaving the Spice Girls. Oh my god.
They are halfway through the Spice World World tour. Halfway.
It's a milbe's birthday.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
Like, who's a duck now, bitch, Like I've had it,
and guess what my hair is that I'm ready to go.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
I'm a duck. Who's going to swim away. So Jerry
Halliwell quits the Spice Girls.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
Oh on my Welby's birthday.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
At the time, she said she was suffering from exhaustion. Well, yeah,
she's doing everything.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
She's like literally climbing, robbing their bosses. She's like hosting
them all in their car.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
Yeah, she's wearing a dressman of a teatowel to get
them more headlines. She's doing the most. She's also like
they all made headlines for different reasons. But like as again,
like Melby would be the one they went to like
events and would like jump into the crowd and do
crazy stuff. But Jerry is the one who, very famously
at an event, walked up behind Prince Charles, who was
a massive Spy Skirls fan, as was Prince William. Prince William,
(45:45):
the story goes, and he has confirmed this. When he
found out the Spy Skirls, he went to his room
and ripped all his posters down and put posters up
of Emma Bunton, that's you.
Speaker 2 (45:52):
Oh my god, William.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
And at an event Jerry had heard that they liked
them Michelle and she walked up behind Prince Charles. At
the time he was Prince Charles and then pinched his
bottom on TV. Wait, that's her own words. I'm using
who did that, Jerry? Jerry? And it became this like huge,
(46:16):
like worldwide sensation. Yeah, it's on TV. I'll find the clip.
What did he do? Nights around and other? And after
they were I can't tell you how much of his
bicycles could do whatever they want at the time, they
were so powerful. And they also did like a lot
of charity stuff with the royal family over the years,
and so they were in with the royal family. That's why,
like Victoria's like always at the royal weddings and whatnot,
(46:38):
because they were like in the in the family. And
afterwards Jerry was asked about it. They were like, why
would you do that to Prince Charles? Why would you
pinch his behind? And she was like, Oh, I pinch everyone,
Why is he any different? I'll do what I want.
She's so cool. So later on her autobiography, Jerry said
that she didn't leave because of exhaustion. Wait, so we
(47:01):
thought she left because at the time she said that
she left because of exhaustion, but she lied, yes, And
I was in primary school at the time. I mean
people cry in the playground, like some people went to
the office to go into the sick bay, like call
their parents. It was worldwide news coverage. Hotlines were set
up to like counsel people who were like really upset
by the demids of the Spice girdlers. People took personal
(47:22):
days off work, like grown adults across the world took
personal days. People were so upset about this. And later
Jerry revealed that the real reason she left the band,
and this is from her book If Only, She said,
the real reason she left the band is that she
was frustrated that she had been prevented from giving a
TV interview about surviving breast cancer in her teens. That's
(47:44):
her story. She said, I couldn't believe it. This was
about saving lives. I knew that it was over with
the band and Ginger Spice was no more.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
Oh my god, what a legend. I actually support that.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
Yeah, And well, the thing is, it's still a lot
of back and forth over something else, Like she was
obviously saying, that's obviously that's a horrific thing to happen.
But she has also since said that there was more
stuff brewing behind the scenes. There were in less wild
pressure cooker, and this is depicted in the spice Ld
the movie. They're together so much, the fame, the pressure.
They had a lot of fights and this one just
(48:18):
blew up in a huge way. So Emma Bunton later
said that they'd done a lot of shows through Europe
and they were quite nervous about going to Tour America
because that was their big market that they were trying
to sell out all these tours, and she said it
just felt like a kick in the teeth that Jerry
left us in that moment. Mel Sye said at the time,
missing Jerry is like missing your mum. You miss her,
but not the nagging. Well, you could have been a
(48:40):
mid night at her, Victoria said. Victoria's so funny. Victoria
said she was sad, but there was one big plus.
For the first time ever, I got to sing on
Wanna Bee, because she famously doesn't get to sing. She's
in that crown going like this, and Jerry has all
the singing bits, so they had to keep going with
this all.
Speaker 2 (48:58):
Like crying, like like crying over Melby's cake, and then
Victoria's like so with the songs like Ma's gonna be
getting Jerry's past.
Speaker 1 (49:08):
She's like, finally my moment. So they said relationships were
very strained for many, many years. They obviously have made
up since then. They got back together for that twenty
nineteen reunion tour. The other band members minus Victoria have
got back together for tours since then. Yeah, Victoria don't
do reunions. She doesn't do anymore. She'll hang out with them.
She's the one actually who hangs out with a lot
(49:30):
of different She will go to their events. She's the
godmother of Jerry Halliwell's daughter. Like, they're all very close.
She doesn't get on stage with them.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
The only time I saw them all together was at
her birthday, and I think it was like from David Beckham's.
Speaker 1 (49:43):
Five Yeah he was, yeah, yeah, they all hang out
together now because also Jerry has since said that she's
really sorry she left the band on Nobody's birthday. She said,
I'm sorry I left. I was just being a brat
and it's so nice now to be back with the
girls that I love. They're so cool. The Four Spice
Girls stayed together until the two thousand. They released more music,
(50:03):
but it just was never the same. So when it.
Speaker 2 (50:05):
Happened with all girl groups like when Jesse left Little Mix,
they stayed together, but it wasn't the same. And then
I think it got really bad because everyone just hated
Jesse so so much. Like it went in like the
opposite way where everyone just was so angry. Yeah, and
then like it happened to Fifth Harmony, also the same thing.
Everyone's just so angry. Like, I just think it's a
bad formula.
Speaker 1 (50:26):
It's hard. Once you get so much fame as a
group and people love you together, it's hard to keep
recreating that magic when one of you was gone, because
the magic was between all of them. They obviously wanted
to be successful, but none of their music ever reached
the heights of what The Spy Skulls did at their
time of like releasing their first album. So I always
think the Spy Skulls went from nineteen ninety six to
nineteen ninety eight because I'm calling it after Jerry left
(50:48):
the band. But again, they've reunited since then. They're all friends,
they're all successful now, and.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
Maybe they should get back together. I or do like
a hologram thing like abba. Maybe I like that because
I want to go to a Spy Skulls concert.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
Oh my god, I can't they are they reformed and
I did get to see them, Like, that's the one
thing in my life. I would love to go to
a spy skulls concept. I don't know if it's gonna happen.
Petition Torria says she won't and also Jerry won't do
that now.
Speaker 2 (51:11):
Oh but maybe if we talk to them, maybe if
we talk to me, Jerry, I know, I know you'll
do anything.
Speaker 1 (51:16):
So that is a Britly honest review. That is wild
Skirl's history. What are your thoughts now?
Speaker 2 (51:21):
This is crazy, Like it's actually crazy that, like these
women did all of that in two What.
Speaker 1 (51:28):
Does Tippy Icebog do? I could have done a twelve
part series on the whole situation. I had to cut
out a lot. I think we need to do.
Speaker 2 (51:34):
We need to find the like, even if it's by
illegal means. We'll do a Jerry, We'll find the foot.
Speaker 1 (51:40):
Anyone has the Spice World movie and you can set
we'll pay postage. Yeah, we'll send us the DVD and
then we will do a Brillian honestory of the movie,
which will be the funniest thing we've ever done.
Speaker 2 (51:48):
Oh my god, please, So.
Speaker 1 (51:50):
Anyway, Victoria Beckham's Netflix special about her fashion shows coming out.
Is Jerry going to be there? Jerry do knows goes
to her shows. Yes, So that's it. Girl power, girl power,
this girl group of all time.
Speaker 2 (52:04):
Thank you so much for listening to the Spill today.
We will be back on Monday morning with all the
that have come out from Taylor Swift's album. Make sure
you tune into that.
Speaker 1 (52:13):
Thank you so much. We will see you next week.
Bye bye.
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