25 years of Spice Girls #Pinkinourlives #Spiceworld

The Spice Girls at 25: Here’s the story from A to Z

Released 25 years ago, on 8 July 1996, Wannabe spent seven weeks at number one in the UK and four in the US. In the process, it made five unknown girls – Victoria Caroline Adams, Melanie Janine Brown, Emma Lee Bunton, Melanie Jayne Chisholm and Geraldine Estelle Halliwell – global superstars.

So here’s a story from A to Z of how the band started, rose to fame, fell apart and put themselves back together again. Because which member of our LGBT+ Community does not love the Spice Girls?!?

H is for Homesickness

As the Spice Girls became a global phenomenon, they were whisked away from their friends and family for months at a time. For tax reasons, they even spent 1998 living outside the UK, which exacerbated their feelings of isolation.

“I cry every day because I want to go home,” wrote Victoria in the 1998 book Forever Spice.

“I called home the other day and my mum said, ‘Your sister has just come in with the baby!’ I could hear baby noises and… EastEnders on the TV in the background and then my dad came in from the chip shop with everybody’s dinner. I was here on my own.

“OK, we’re famous and we’re doing what we enjoy but all I was thinking at that time was, ‘God I miss my family and home!’ I miss seeing the windows all steamy when my mum has burnt the dinner and there’s a chair wedging the door open so that the fire alarm doesn’t go off.

“I have been strong for a long time and you always think to yourself, come on, let’s be strong, move on. But I don’t want to be strong any more. I just want to sit down and cry… and have someone stand in front of me with their shield and say, ‘I’ll protect you’.”