-Hi! We're the Spice Girls!
-In the late '90s, five wannabes
become the best-selling girl group of all time.
-That level of fame was a juggernaut.
-Girl power coming at ya! -[ Shouts ]
-But a brazen attitude about their own success...
-Phil Spector called them the Antichrist.
-...has critics saying it's too much...
-People don't want to take their kind of arrogance anymore.
-...moralists telling them to stop...
-They were very open about it.
-...and even some fans wondering,
who do you think you are?
-Fame definitely comes with a price.
[ Indistinct shouting ]
-But their biggest test will come
when one of them says goodbye.
-"I would like to confirm that I have left the Spice Girls."
- Geri left. Oh, why? What happened?
-No way!
-Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
-Where do you go from there?
♪
-Oh, no!
♪
[ Dial-up modem screeching ]
♪
[ Crowd cheering ]
-The London Olympics coming to an end
with a rocking closing ceremony. -Oh, yeah.
-The five Spice Girls last take the stage together
at the 2012 Olympic Games in London.
[ Camera shutter clicks ]
-Their appearance was like the last Spice Girls music video.
It was capital "G" capital "P" Girl Power.
-But as they take their closing ceremony victory lab...
[ Crowd cheering, fireworks exploding ]
-...they're also closing out a career
that began with a sprint to stardom in the late 1990s.
♪
Earlier in the decade, America's grunge scene
is threatening to take over the global music market.
[ Crowd cheering ]
But in England, music magazines are heralding
an anti-grunge movement called Brit-pop,
which is about to launch a new British invasion.
Led by bands like The Stone Roses and Blur,
the groups provide the soundtrack for the birth
of Cool Britannia,
marked by an increased pride in U.K. culture
and especially by Britain's young artists.
♪
-Brit-pop was a very male-dominated thing.
-They are the band of the people.
They are Oasis.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Oasis were the biggest.
I'm David Sinclair.
I'm the author of "The Spice Girls:
How the Spice Girls Reinvented Pop Fame."
In Britain, there was no girl group around.
It was all boy groups.
East 17 and Take That were very successful.
-We want Take That! We want Take That!
We want Take That!
-It was the start of a real pop scene in London
dominated by manufactured boy bands, really.
-Boyzone, Gemini, Backstreet Boys, Upside Down,
the list of boy bands around these days is endless.
-In the early '90s, I was really looking for an act
that would get me some recognition.
My name is Chris Herbert.
I'm a music manager by trade,
and I'm responsible for putting the Spice Girls together.
Boy bands really only appealed to a female and a gay audience.
I thought if you could put a girl band together
that was both aspirational to girls, appealing to boys,
I think -- and also a bit camp, you could double that audience.
-21-year-old Chris successfully pitches
the idea to his partners,
his father, Bob, and financial backer Chic Murphy.
He then begins scouting London for female talent
with a distinct type of girl in mind.
-There's a different work ethic with working-class girls.
We wanted girls that were hungry for it.
I just put an advert in the Stage newspaper.
It was kind of an Uncle Sam recruitment poster, basic,
but they did the job.
♪
I probably saw a few hundred girls.
I managed to certainly tick off a few.
I got it down to 10 or 12 girls.
-Well, I'm Melanie Brown. I'm 19 years old.
-Chris eventually spots a couple of girls he wants.
-Mel B actually turned up to audition for a cruise,
and I plucked her out,
and we pulled her in and put her upstairs.
And I knew the minute I saw her that she was hot property.
-[ Vocalizing ]
-Mel C was great. She had that northern soul.
She was good. She just snapped into it.
-Everyone wanted the audition, and luckily I got it.
-Another girl, Victoria Adams,
doesn't fit Chris's working-class ideal.
-She was different to the others.
Sophisticated.
-She is the foxy lady of the group.
-I'm not. -But he makes an exception.
-[ Singing indistinctly ]
-Michelle Stephenson is Chris's fourth pick.
But the girl he desperately wants to fill out the group
is playing hard to get.
-My name's Geri, like Tom and Jerry.
-Geri wasn't at the original audition.
Every time I asked her to come, there was always an excuse.
-Basically, I don't think I would have got the audition
because my vocal technique was not exactly very good then.
-Now, I now know that what her tactic was, which was to try
and bounce her way through those preliminary auditions,
fast-tracking everything else
and getting into the -- into the main event.
-I want to be a pop star.
-And to help them make that happen,
Chris moves his ragtag group of girls into a house
to begin their transformation.
-It was a boot camp to get these girls really singing
and performing like a fully formed unit.
-Their drill sergeant is a vocal coach
and former backup singer who has performed alongside The Beatles,
The Rolling Stones, and Tina Turner.
-So I had a call one day, would I come up
and have a listen to them to see what I thought.
I'm Pepi Lemer.
And I trained the Spice Girls.
Oh, gosh.
Each of them needed a lot of work.
-[ Vocalizing ]
-Right away, there's a problem.
Michelle Stephenson is out of harmony with the other girls.
[ Laughter ]
♪
-She just wasn't fitting in.
She would never gel with it.
And we had to tell her to go.
[ Indistinct conversations ]
-But Pepi has a replacement in mind...
-Hi. -...18-year-old Emma Bunton.
-I had taught Emma a couple of years before,
and I always remembered her
because she's so pretty, a pretty voice.
-I just had to sing a song. I sang SWV.
-She was cute, really likable. You know, they loved her.
-Yeah. -Chris's blonde.
-She's the only blonde in the group.
-I've got a strip of it. -And I've got a streak.
-I'm a little bit ditzy. So is she.
-♪ Time is now ♪
-When you saw them lined up,
the whole thing just kind of fell into place.
-Chris names his new girl group Touch
and hands them off to Pepi to begin grueling rehearsals.
-We got off to a bit of a rocky start.
-Hey. -[ Vocalizing scale ]
-Geri was more hesitant because her voice wasn't strong.
Neither was Victoria's.
-♪ Yeah ♪
♪ But why did you come in my life ♪
-And at the end of the day,
Geri got hold of my notes,
and she was very upset because I had said,
"You're going out of tune."
I would privately say to her, "Learn from it.
Don't cry about it.
You're just at the beginning, beginning of learning."
-None of them were the best singers.
-♪ Deeper ♪
♪ Than ♪
-A little bit flat.
-None of them were the best dancers.
-Yeah. -Alright. Whoo! Let's go.
-We were looking for great characters,
and we felt that we could do the rest ourselves.
-♪ Away, you know ♪
-We were doing eight-hour days in the studio,
and it was rehearse, rehearse, rehearse again, again, again.
-What keeps the girls going
is their dreams of fame and fortune.
-♪ Oh, oh ♪
-Hopefully, when we get where we -- where we want to be,
we'll be able to lay back in the limousines
and all that, but it's just been a lot of hard work now.
-I thought I'd show you some my outfits.
'Cause I am the original pop queen, everyone says.
[ Indistinct conversations ]
-They didn't have very much.
I remember I brought a big bag of clothes.
They took the clothes because, you know, they were struggling.
-Oh, my God! Oh, no!
-Struggling and working-class but not stupid,
the girls keep being told
they're going to be hugely successful.
-...I wouldn't want.
-Convince yourself it's gonna happen so that --
-So it does. -So it does happen.
-Yeah.
-So they tell their management team
they want something in writing for when that day comes.
-Obviously, I would have put a management contract in place.
But my father and the financial backer at the time
were much more old school in their way of thinking.
-What I would do is work 'em.
[ Indistinct shouting ]
-You know, you kind of keep everyone
fighting for their position,
feeling slightly insecure
that they could actually be replaced at any time.
That way, you get people fighting for it.
♪
I didn't think that that was the right way,
so, you know, I was all for them --
us getting a contract together.
-[ Vocalizing ]
-Alright, it was a mistake, a mistake.
But you made a big --
[ Indistinct arguing ]
-Chris's partners' plan to keep the girls anxious
and fighting works to drive them apart
until a leader emerges to pull them back together.
-Millions of kids out there want to be pop stars.
Do you know what I mean? And we're actually taking steps
getting closer and closer to a dream.
Do you know what I mean?
-Without a doubt, Geri was the leader.
-I'm the brains behind it all.
-She was a little bit older.
She knew that she had the least talent
in terms of singing and dancing,
but Geri brought an energy and a camaraderie
that was the nucleus of what that band became.
So she steps up immediately, and her sidekick was Mel B.
-♪ I need you ♪
-Like five unique ingredients that create a savory dish,
the girls blend together in a way
that gives rise to a new name.
-We wrote a song called "Sugar and Spice."
-We're just very individual. -We're just very spicy.
-And very spicy, and we all like to get up
and have a good old laugh.
-Along with their new name Spice comes a two-word slogan
that one day will become a rallying call
for girls across the globe.
-Girl power coming at ya! -[ Shouts ]
-Whoo! -Girl power.
-Their slogan is borrowed from American punk band Bikini Kill,
who pioneer an underground feminist movement
called Riot Grrrl in the early '90s.
-♪ I think I want to be your best friend, yeah ♪
-♪ No stopping, delaying ♪
♪ You know exactly what I'm saying ♪
-Geri had borrowed that whole attitude,
but she -- quite cleverly, she sort of repackaged it
but in a much more pop palatable way.
-In 1994, in a tiny London rehearsal studio,
Pepi's efforts to energize girl power
seemed to happen in a flash.
-I had them in a singing circle
going, "One, two, three, four,"
and then they started to sing with a four-part harmony.
I remember tingles.
-[ Harmonizing ]
-♪ Take me away ♪
-I only thought, "Oh."
That was magical.
The music world was waiting for something like this to happen.
-Soon, these five girls from London --
Ginger, Posh, Sporty, Baby, and Scary --
will take over the BRIT Awards...
-The all-conquering Spice Girls!
-...and then the world.
-♪ Take me away ♪
-In December 1994,
Spice, the girl group Chris Herbert put together
and Pepi Lemer spent months meticulously training,
is ready for their first industry showcase.
-[ Speaks indistinctly ]
-I had invited along the best writers, producers,
managers of writers, and publishers.
[ Dramatic music plays ]
-We were all on edge.
It was a huge deal for them.
They have worked so hard.
-♪ We're gonna make it happen ♪ -♪ You know that ♪
-Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.
Oh, it was fantastic.
-♪ Ooh-hoo ♪
-They were just not fazed by it at all,
and, in fact, they took control of the room.
-We think that there's a massive gap, definitely, yeah,
for a girl group.
-They were sitting there interviewing the writers,
saying, "Look, you know, well, he's written for Take That.
Who have you written for?"
-You know, we're not as poppy as Take That.
-People wanted to work with them.
So I was rubbing my hands together.
It was everything I wanted.
-But like they're saying "Be careful what you wish for,"
Chris soon discovers that the girls' confidence
in front of those music executives
foreshadows a problem
when he and his partners finally offer Spice a contract.
-By the time we had presented it to the girls,
I think there was a slight, you know,
change of thought on their part
where they weren't coming to us cap in hand and saying,
"When are you going to sign us?"
It was more like,
"We don't necessarily think that we need your contract now."
-Chris still believes the girls will sign with him.
So he sets up a recording session at Sheffield Studio
for them to work with songwriter Eliot Kennedy.
[ Line ringing ]
But on the day, the girls stop answering Chris's calls.
[ Ringing continues ] -[ Sighs ]
Hmm.
-I didn't really know what was going on.
So I run to Eliot and I said,
"Look, the girls won't be making the session.
We'll reschedule."
He said, "Look, Chris, I've got to tell you."
He said, "The girls are already here."
I was like, "Oh."
[ Indistinct conversation ]
They had gone up to Sheffield.
Eventually got to Eliot, said, "Hi. We're Spice.
We've kind of fallen out with management.
Would you have the session anyway?"
He said, "Look, the girls don't want to speak to you."
And that was it.
[ Beeping ] -[ Sighs ]
[ Cheering, laughing ]
-That just superpowered them and gave them the belief
that they can do this themselves and take -- take --
you know, be in control of their own destiny.
I didn't see the girls for dust after they had left.
You know, I was a young manager.
You know, I was kind of their older brother and friend.
-[ Vocalizing ]
-So I was more hurt personally
because we -- we hung out
and we were friends and everything else.
And we'd spent so much time together.
I was more hurt about that than I was at the prospect of,
"Oh, God, we've lost this band."
I mourned the loss of our friendship.
And the fact that they felt that they could do that to me.
[ Glass shatters ]
-There was one particular guy, and he was,
like -- he was auditioning for a girl band.
And we went with him for a little while.
But then what did we do, girls? We did the off.
We did the off and did our own thing
and started our own spicy movement.
-But in the '90s for women to launch a movement
in the music industry, spicy or otherwise,
it still requires getting past the gatekeepers.
And that means men.
-You know, we're doing it for the girls.
We want the girlies out there to join our gang.
-It was always manipulated, the industry, by men.
Very, very few women. Very few managers were women.
-I think girls like to see some of the girls
doing it for a change.
-Their personalities were on par with their music.
You know, that independent feminist spirit
of young girls saying, "Up yours."
-Understanding they need men to help guide their career.
Spice decides to go after the most powerful men
in London's music scene.
-They would find someone that they wanted to influence,
be it a record company executive or a manager,
and they'd march into these offices.
[ Laughter ]
And they'd start doing an impromptu performance.
They'd flirt with these executives
or they'd pinch their bottoms.
[ Laughter ]
Geri once was told that the executive
she wanted to see wasn't in the office.
So she went over to the photocopier
and just pulled up her top and ran off a copy of her boobs.
Put the photocopy on his desk, said,
"Well, tell him that's what he missed."
-Fosse gets foxy!
-What they did was they reversed the casting couch role.
They kind of seduced the male people in charge.
-Including Simon Fuller,
one of London's top music managers,
who represents Annie Lennox.
He later creates the shows "Pop Idol"
and the wildly successful "American Idol" in the States.
-Simon Fuller was the one that was the winner,
and a few people were left in the dust, including me.
-After making one manager disappear and hiring Fuller,
the magical young women rebrand themselves Spice Girls
and soon secure a lucrative recording contract
from Virgin Records.
But on the day of the contract signing,
they once again perform a disappearing act.
-The Virgin executives are waiting at their HQ,
and they sent a limo off to pick up the Spice Girls.
Well, the limo arrives.
It's got five blow-up dolls in it,
sex dolls corresponding to the five girls.
And the Spice Girls are nowhere to be seen.
They were out doing who knows what.
[ Laughter ]
Finally, the girls arrive.
They had a few drinks, I think.
They sign the contract, chuck the dolls in the canal.
[ Horn blaring, laughter ]
Apparently, Victoria's knickers had been removed
before they got to wherever they were going
and chucked out the window.
And it was an uproarious drunken night out that they had.
[ Laughter ] -Hey!
-Aah!
-Hi! We're the Spice Girls!
[ Crowd cheering ]
-A year later on the BBC...
-Spice Girls are Top of the Pops!
-...the Spice Girls perform their first single, "Wannabe."
It's a bittersweet moment for their one-time manager
who helped get them there.
♪
-I was blown away by it.
The whole thing had come together,
and I'm watching it on TV as a punter,
which was a kind of strange thing, so...
♪
-"Wannabe" quickly climbs to number one
on the U.K. singles charts, selling 7 million copies.
It will soon reach number one in 37 countries worldwide.
-It's Spice Girl mania.
Young wannabes all over the place.
-♪ If you wanna be my lover ♪
♪ You got to get with my friends ♪
-We love you, Spice Girls!
-Kids just went nuts.
-Girl power. [ Girls cheering ]
-It turned that whole generation onto music virtually overnight.
I thought to myself, "Yeah,
that's certainly gonna stir things up."
-But when the Spice Girls stir things up in the media,
it's often the people around them whose lives get shaken.
-They fired the whole Spice Girls machine
that surrounds them.
[ Camera shutters clicking ]
-The Spice Girls song "Wannabe"
is making "girl power" a catchphrase of the '90s...
-Girl power. -[ Cheering ]
-...and launching a wave of Spice mania...
-♪ ...is too easy, but that's the way it is ♪
-It's the best group in the world.
-...that sweeps across Europe and Asia
before invading America.
-Alright, America, here they come the Spice Girls.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Girl power! -Girl power.
-I want to do this. Mwah!
[ Audience cheering ]
-The fab five thrill U.S. television audiences
on shows like "Live with Regis and Kathie Lee"
and "Saturday Night Live,"
where they perform "Wannabe" and their next number-one hit,
"Say You'll Be There."
-Girl power.
-The girls are the hottest group around.
They even have mom's stamp of approval.
-Spice Mom! -Whoo!
-As for the man who invented the Internet,
U.S. Vice President Al Gore,
he can't escape the Spice Girls, either.
-I don't know. [ Laughter ]
[ Camera shutters clicking, indistinct shouting ]
♪
[ Crowd cheering ]
-I couldn't believe the enormity of it all.
To be plucked from where we were in a little house,
could this happen?
Yeah.
[ Crowd cheering, shouting ]
[ Horn honks ]
-With the Spice Girls,
that level of fame was a juggernaut.
[ Crowd screaming ]
Probably not seen since The Beatles.
[ Chuckles ]
I'm Shinan Govani.
I'm a longtime social and pop culture columnist.
-She's brilliant. -She's brilliant.
-Here we had the only girl band up until then
who had really sort of played into the idea
of their own brashness and their own femininity.
[ Crowd shouting, horn blares ]
-In March of 1997,
the British press prints 141 Spice Girls stories in one week.
That summer, the group rides girl power
to the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.
♪
Now Britain's biggest pop-culture phenomenon,
these once-working-class girls get invited
to the most privileged of U.K. events.
A royal gala.
-Oh, no!
-You are.
-There's the famous sequence meeting Prince Charles
where Geri Halliwell gives a pat on the butt
of the future King.
♪
Charles post-Diana was seen as somewhat of a fuddy-duddy.
By putting their pixie dust on him,
they made him instantly cooler.
[ Camera shutter clicks ]
-We're just having a laugh.
We're just a girl gang here doing music,
enjoy it to the max.
-Just 10 months after the release of "Wannabe,"
the Spice Girls achieved Mel B's goal...
-Hopefully, when we get where we -- where we want to be,
we'll be able to lay back in the limousine.
-...helped along by a movie deal
and endorsement contracts for over 100 products.
-They could have sold anything anywhere to anyone.
-Sporty Spice. -I have Baby Spice.
-And I have Posh Spice. [ Crowd screaming ]
-They were leveraging their fame...
-Girl power!
-...their moment.
-Girls, we got to go and press the button.
[ Cheering ]
-Is there such a thing as too much spice?
The Spice Girls may be suffering from overexposure.
-I don't think that the Spice Girls were doing anything
that legions of male pop stars had not done for decades.
-♪ You're the Pepsi generation ♪
-Michael Jackson was in Pepsi commercials.
-♪ Hold it down, feel the noise ♪
-English band the Spice Girls has made a commercial
for the soft drink giant.
-The Spice Girls were a brand unto themselves.
-But when the press announced in 1997
that the Spice Girls would earn an estimated $500 million
from sponsorships, the backlash is swift and stinging.
-There's just too much marketing, not enough music.
-Hey, who needs Victoria's autograph?
-And the money comes, of course, from the fans.
Spice girls Limited operate a mail-order business,
selling everything from jackets to mugs and T-shirts.
-Oh, God, there was nothing
that the Spice Girls would not endorse.
-Spice Girls merchandising's big business.
-People didn't like that very much.
They felt that music should exist for a higher purpose.
And art should be taken more seriously
than the Spice Girls were taking it.
-Here's the book.
-This is it. This is the book.
-The Spice Girls' commercialism is so over the top
that Liam Gallagher of the band Oasis sparks a media feud
by announcing he's refusing to attend the 1997 BRIT Awards
because he fears he will smack them.
[ Crowd cheering ]
On awards night, Geri tries to win back British favor
by performing in a dress she and her sister craft
from a single Union Jack tea towel.
-♪ Oh, yeah ♪
-And the winner...
the little Spice Girls!
When the Spice Girls song "Wannabe"
beats out the Oasis song,
ironically called "Don't Look Back in Anger,"
Sporty Spice can't resist challenging Liam Gallagher.
-I just want to say, Liam, come and have a go
if you think you're hard enough.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-That was girl power personified,
calling out, you know, this rock hard man at an industry event.
-It's got fuck all to do with you.
-A month later at the Capital Awards,
Liam's brother and bandmate Noel Gallagher
takes his shot at the Spice Girls
for doing marketing, not music.
[ Cheers and applause ] True to their brand,
the fab five aren't going to let Gallagher have the last word.
-Did anybody notice how Noel Gallagher
ran out after he said that?
-He ran. [ Cheers and applause ]
-Later that year, the Spice Girls
do get back to the music,
performing two sold-out shows to ecstatic fans in Istanbul
that are recorded and sold on VHS
and releasing a second hit album, "Spice World,"
along with an autobiographical movie of the same name.
But behind the scenes, the girls are beginning to rebel
against their manager Simon Fuller's
grueling schedule.
♪
-They were getting called at 5:00 in the morning
to go and do the filming,
and they were ending up in the recording studio until,
you know, 11:00 or 12:00 the same night.
There were hardly any time to even go to bed,
let alone have a life.
-Once willing to pay any price for fame,
the Spice Girls now seem tired of the cost,
something they dramatize in their movie.
-We're old enough to take responsibility for our own lives.
Do you know what I mean? -You don't have a life.
You have a schedule.
You are part of a well-oiled global machine.
-In the movie, they were just pleading for some time off,
and Richard E. Grant wouldn't give it to them.
And in real life,
Simon Fuller was more or less doing the same.
You know, he was saying, "No, we've got to keep going.
We can't stop."
It all came to a head, really, when they went to Johannesburg
and did a charity show for Nelson Mandela.
And Prince Charles was there at the same time,
and they spent a weekend there.
They were allowed a little bit of time off.
-It is one of the greatest moments in my life.
-Aye!
-It's the second greatest moment.
-During that South African trip,
I think they got a bit fed up with hearing
how much they owed to Simon Fuller.
-And so, like they did at the dawn of their careers...
[ Glass shatters ]
...the five girls huddled together
to make a fateful decision.
-That was the time at which they cooked up
getting rid of Simon Fuller as their manager.
♪
It was a complete bombshell.
And it was a gift to the tabloids.
-Wild fans screamed
as the British sensation Spice Girls
made a grand entrance at the long-awaited premiere
of their new movie.
-Charles is our new manager.
[ Laughter ]
-But with no Simon Fuller to protect them,
the Spice Girls are more vulnerable.
-Suddenly, it was open season.
-The girls have hit back,
saying it was all a misunderstanding.
[ Crowd booing ]
[ Camera shutters clicking ]
-The Spice Girls have been booed
for delaying an award ceremony in Barcelona.
[ Crowd booing, camera shutters clicking ]
[ Indistinct shouting ]
-A week after firing their manager,
the Spice Girls refused to take the stage
at a Spanish awards show
until the photographers are removed.
-The girls insisted they had the copyright
on any pictures of them.
When they finally came onstage, the reaction was mixed.
After they'd sung... [ Crowd booing ]
...the floor manager desperately tried
to whip up applause, but to no avail.
-Headlines and news reports tell the story.
The girls' spicy prima donna routine
is beginning to leave a bad taste in people's mouths.
-What happened last night is basically
the Spice girls displayed quite a bit of arrogance.
I think they did themselves no favors at all
by getting rid of their manager, Simon Fuller,
who actually, you know, was responsible for their success,
no matter what they might think.
-There was always going to come a point where enough was enough.
Historically, pop groups have a very limited time frame.
You know, they come and they go, and that's it,
in the press, in the media.
And I think it was just felt that it was time
to take them down a peg or two.
I mean, Phil Spector called them the Antichrist.
-The 1997 Christmas season delivers a sobering blow
to the five Spice Girls
when they're beaten on the U.K. singles chart
by the four Teletubbies,
whose big hit "Teletubbies say 'Eh-oh!'"
wins over the hearts and minds of children
during the holiday rush.
-Eh-oh!
-You think this is the beginning of the end.
-Yeah.
-But while critics are quick
to write the Spice Girls' obituary...
-Girl power!
-...news of their demise proves premature
when their announced 102-date world tour sells out in minutes.
-How long do you think the Spice Girls are gonna last?
-Forever.
-As they perform before screaming fans,
it appears Spice mania can't be stopped.
-It's like a marriage. -It is.
-Yeah. -Totally, and I don't think
we'll ever lose that. I think we --
We always say we're gonna be like the Golden Girls.
-All of these girls are strong individuals.
They just ignore the tabloids, went on on their business
and what they had to achieve and what they had to do.
Eszteca Noya.
My name is Eszteca Noya,
and I was one of the main dancers
on the Spice Girls world tour 1998.
Just wanted to make sure, you know.
I'm a street dancer, and I was lucky to end up as a Spice Boy.
To be onstage with the Spice Girls,
that was incredible.
[ Crowd cheering ]
-As Baby Spice's dance partner,
Eszteca basks in the glow of the spotlight.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-The view here is nice.
-And offstage...
-Geri.
The bodyguard, all fans here.
-...Eszteca has a front-row seat to what happens
in the shadows of Spiceworld.
-Eszteca, you're a lazy bitch.
-Spice Girls.
The daily routine just exhausts you.
-Oi, come like this. Do it.
Stage it like it is, do it and get on with it.
-The girls were always getting homesick, as well.
-Aah!
-So the girls try to keep things light
to relieve the tour's daily grind.
-[ Laughs ]
Yeah, there was some specifics
of which I heard about pajama parties,
but I'd rather not tell that.
-But he will confirm that some of the girls
are relieving homesickness in the company
of their male dancers.
-[ Laughs ]
-We've got Spice Boys.
-[ Speaks Spanish ]
-You heard Christian is together with Geri
and Mel B's together with Jim.
It was like, "Okay.
Okay, cool."
They didn't hide it. They were very open about it.
That's how it all went into the media.
-As did a Spice Girl relationship
not involving a member of the crew.
Posh Spice lives in the tabloid headlines
alongside her equally famous fiancé.
-David Beckham, one of the most famous faces in football,
and Victoria Adams, better known as Posh Spice,
posing for pictures after announcing their engagement.
-The paparazzi hound Posh and Becks
on the European leg of the tour.
-They were both just so hot.
We had just come out of the Diana/Charles rise and fall.
-I'm embarrassed now. Stop it.
-If Posh and Becks didn't exist, the British tabloids,
they would have had to make them up.
-And like with Princess Diana,
the tabloid encounters with the Spice Girls
become increasingly ruthless and relentless,
something Mel C speaks frankly about during a 2022 podcast.
-They called me Sumo Spice.
I mean, how disgusting is that?
-There was a lot of focus on their bodies at the time.
-As Geri reveals when interviewed,
the cruelty of the tabloids is hard to bear.
-When somebody calls me a fat old slag, you know,
if I wasn't sure of what I was doing,
I wouldn't be able to continue.
-They were privy to all kinds of headlines
that would certainly not pass muster in our time today.
[ Camera shutters clicking ]
When you become famous at that level,
it is Pandora's box.
It's inevitable that the fame begins to eat you alive.
-No!
-And also devours relationships.
-Have you cut short the tour out there?
-No. -No.
-We're not telling you.
-The pressure and the pace and the amount of work
that they'd done, it all started to take its toll.
[ Indistinct shouting ]
-People start to wear down...
[ Shouting continues ]
...spit out what they really felt inside.
[ Shouting continues ]
We were asking ourselves like, "Wow,
there's something going on."
[ Indistinct talking ]
-[ Sobbing ]
-But we didn't know what was going on.
♪
-[ Sobbing ]
-Something snapped at that point.
-In May 1998,
the Spice Girls perform together in Helsinki, Finland.
And everything seems normal.
-It's the midweek National Lottery draw.
-But when the group returns to London for a TV appearance,
not all of them make it to the studio.
-Are we not missing somebody? -We are.
-Unfortunately, Geri's not very well tonight,
so get well soon, Geri.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-When Geri just didn't show up,
it was a pop-culture earthquake.
-Girl power may not be enough
to hold the most popular girl group of the '90s together.
Ginger Spice missed a concert last night.
-Ginger Spice is missing.
-No way!
-Yeah. -Where's Geri gone?
-♪ Where has Geri gone? ♪
-What happens now?
-After four days of wild speculation
over Ginger Spice's whereabouts,
Geri Halliwell's lawyer reads her statement to the world.
-"I wish to apologize to all the fans.
I would like to confirm that I have left the Spice Girls.
This is because of differences between us."
-Geri hasn't revealed her future plans,
but the remaining four Spice Girls say
they'll be pressing on with their American tour.
-When Geri leaves the band,
for those who were invested in these five women,
it represented an abrupt break, death, end.
-[ Screams ]
-And it invited so much speculation
about who was to blame, what led up to it, you know,
where do the Spice Girls go now?
-What did she say that day?
-Funny enough, she didn't.
-Geri is asked the same question
since leaving the Spice Girls.
-Why? Why did you leave?
-You know, I have my reasons why I left the Spice Girls.
But it's like a marriage.
I think, you know,
you should keep those kind of things private to a degree.
-But time will do what Barbara Walters couldn't --
get Geri to reveal how her struggles as a Spice Girl
helped contribute to her leaving.
-"They called her old, fat, and ugly, as they often did."
Isn't that horrible?
-And in 2016,
Geri reveals to Oprah Winfrey
just how serious her problems became.
-We all use different tools to get by.
You know, coping mechanisms.
Mine was controlling my body weight.
I started being bulimic.
-If you're under that kind of spotlight,
all kind of scrutiny can affect one's imbalances.
-Victoria and Mel C have both revealed their own struggles
with eating disorders and depression...
-Victoria Adams.
-...made worse by the media's obsession with their weight,
which includes live humiliation on TV
two months after Posh has a baby.
-Is your weight back to normal? -Yeah, it is.
-Can I check? Do you mind?
-Oh, no. You did this to Geri, didn't you?
No, but Geri was, like, really small.
-But it's alright.
-The media's quick and constant reactions
to the Spice Girls' weight fluctuations
may have led to their instability
and mental health issues,
something Mel C has been honest about in recent interviews.
-I'd spent years trying to make myself smaller.
And it was killing me. I had depression.
I just knew I'd lost control over my eating.
-Fame definitely comes with a price.
For the girls, it probably got too much for them
through those pressures.
When you're trying to kind of keep a steady ship,
that becomes, you know, quite damaging.
-No, no.
-In a documentary film shortly after she leaves the group,
Geri drops hints that another Spice Girl prompted her exit.
-I had no choice. I had no choice.
Absolutely no choice.
-Do you think they wanted you out?
-Yes. One particular member did.
-[ Vocalizing ]
-♪ Everything... ♪
-Rumors involving Mel B,
who helps Geri pull the group together
back during their boot camp days,
have never gone away.
In a recent interview,
Mel B speaks candidly about their relationship.
-There were rumors that you and Geri
were, you know, more than just good friends.
You'd had a little dabble.
-Oh.
She had great boobs.
[ Laughter ]
-So you did?
Yes, really?
-Even Mel C seemed shocked by the admission.
-This was like an earthquake revelation.
Geri has denied this,
so I guess the truth lies somewhere.
[ Camera shutters clicking, indistinct shouting ]
[ Crowd cheering ]
-After Geri's departure,
the four remaining Spice Girls finish
the world tour in America.
-Spice Girls rule!
-Then they record a third album called "Forever."
Aside from their reunion tour in 2007,
the Spice Girls haven't performed as a full group
since the 2012 London Olympics.
-The Spice Girls effectively only existed for a few years.
Of course, their legacy lives on in a whole new generation
of female pop stars inspired by them.
-What it did for me was springboard me
into the music industry.
-♪ Oh, oh ♪
-When I look at the Spice Girls,
I don't feel any bitterness, remorse,
because I still look at that band,
and it's still part of my legacy.
They still hold the crown.
They're still the biggest girl band.
-They've all come through it.
They all have children who seem to be reasonably adjusted.
They've all found their own place in the scheme of things
at the end of it all.
And that was what girl power was all about, you know?