Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Able 2021 It was 1994 and there was a call-out for a female lead role in a film. 97 to 105, please. Not sure I'd put that on there. I'm just special... I'm just special... THEY LAUGH Tank Girl was this really brilliant cartoon. She lived in Australia, she drove a tank, she shot everything up, she blasted her way through, had inappropriate sex with kangaroos. It's a kind of '90s ladette. She was just mega cool. CAMERAS CLICK And, for the film, they had open auditions for young women. And, in those days, those who thought they had a bit of a talent would just bump around these kind of funny little auditions for things. OK, so what I'm going to ask you to do is introduce yourself and say something about yourself. OK? Pretty much everyone there was hoping to get noticed and make some sort of impression. Name? Is Davina McCall. OK, next? My name's Miranda Sawyer. Sorry? Sorry, my name's Miranda Sawyer. I got sent as a journalist to audition and to write about it, and I remember standing there and I looked... ..I mean, a bit mad, because I was dressed a bit like Tank Girl. I had, like, stripy shorts on and a backwards cap. Do you want another one? CAMERAMAN: Yeah, another one. TOY GUN FIRES This side. Like that? But there was this one girl who stood out because she didn't seem all that bothered, and she was just behind me. She was like, "I don't know why I'm here. "I'm here because it's an audition, "but I don't know anything about Tank Girl." My name's Victoria Adams Wood, I'm 19. I don't look at all right for this part, but I'm an actress. And then another girl, who had... She had kind of red hair like that, and that was... It was Victoria and Geri. That's where they met. Hi, my name is Geri, like Tom and Jerry, but spelt differently. I'm a jack of all trades, I've got a quirky sense of humour. Been training down the gym if you want biceps. And actress, presenter, and that's it. That's me. In the mid-'90s, a new phenomenon emerged. ALL: Wahey! Whoo! Out of the backdrop of ladette culture came the girl group that would inspire a generation. SHOUTING AND CAMERA CLICKS These five ordinary women became global icons, overcoming the scrutiny... ..the sexism... ..and the scandals. PAPARAZZI: David! David! This was a wildfire. Those five women were an extraordinary freak of nature together. They became the biggest-selling girl group the world has ever seen. CHEERING In the spring of 1994, Chris Herbert had an idea and organised a series of auditions in Central London. Can I...? Yeah? Can I have another pillow? Yeah, of course. I can get some for you. Cushion. I'm just... Bloody thing. I never liked this sofa. It always comes up, when people ask me what I do. So, you know, if I say I'm in music management, and they're like, "Ooh, anyone we know?" And then you kind of go... Somewhere, you just reel off the artists and at the beginning you sort of say, "Oh, you know, I put the Spice Girls together," and they're like, "You put the Spice Girls together?!" Now, are you manufactured like Take That and the other boybands? ALL: No! Go on, then, how did it all come about? We were friends before. Yeah, we'd known each other for a long time, cos, like, we were all dancers and singers before we got together. And then we just got, like, friendly because we kept meeting up. And then we decided to move in together, so we all moved in. Well, I mean, obviously... You know, they were obviously trying to make it... ..seem more organic and more authentic than... ..than...than what it was, really. That's the original flyer. "Are you 18 to 23 with the ability to sing, dance? "Are you streetwise, outgoing, ambitious and dedicated? "Please send your CVs..." Blah-blah-blah. All right, Chris, what's the concept behind this band? Is it fair to say a girls' version of Take That? Yeah, in a roundabout way, I would say. I'd like it to be a little bit more street and cred than that. So what's your role in all this? Well, I'm sort of artistic control, part of the management team. You've got Bob, he's finance, business affairs - the brains behind it all. And Chic is the guy with the wallet, really. Chic was an old-school manager. You know, his way of managing an act was to kind of... Yeah, rule by an iron fist. To put a group together, putting it bluntly... ..what I would do is work 'em. He's sort of saying, "We can't be putting them under contract - "they'd start getting comfy, "and that's when you start getting complacency and everything else." Can you stand in the cross? SHE SINGS Chris thought he was onto something. There hadn't been a successful all-girl group in years, and there was a huge gap in the pop market. # Said you'd buy me... # # And I-I-I-I-I... # # Do you feel the same? # Am I only dream...? # APPLAUSE The first person that impressed me - actually, that was Mel B. Yeah. I just loved her attitude. She just kind of came in like she couldn't give a toss. You know, she was all a bit nonchalant and, you know, just kind of... Just it was all a bit throwaway, really, and I actually liked that. She was uber-confident. # I believe the children are our future # Teach them well and let them lead the way # Show them all the beauty they possess inside... # VICTORIA SINGS And then you had Victoria that was, you know, more sophisticated, more classic. You know, had a bit of grace. # Now he's over... # Brilliant. # Oh, I'm so excited # And I just can't hide it... # Mel C. She kind of had that Northern Soul kind of tone to her. # And I'm so excited # So I just can't hide it... # APPLAUSE And these were the scores. Yeah, so... Yeah, number, dance, singing, look, personality. So this is Victoria. Victoria Adams Wood. Dancing - six. Singing - five. Look - seven. "Not very good skin." Personality - five. I first heard about the audition in the Stage newspaper. It would come out every Thursday and, on a Thursday, I would be there, flicking through it and circling the things that I was going to go for. I sent a demo tape and photograph of myself, of me in some crop top. I got a phone call and I got invited into the last audition. Your adrenaline, you know? The hope and stuff, and you're like, "Oh, no, this is going to be it!" Melanie from Leeds. Right. I remember being in a group with Mel B. And I was thinking, "Geez, I'm 23, and she's, like, so young "and she's telling everybody what to do." And she's like, "No, you move there, you do this, you do that." So I thought, "Well, actually, I could just go along with this "and make my life easier." Oh, God. Hello. Obviously, I do remember Geri. Basically, I think that every group does need a bit of a, you know, organiser. I wouldn't say I'm bossy, more of an organiser. I'm quite a motivated, enthusiastic person. Because, you know, I'm just... Feel like time's running out, got to get there. And basically I think the pop market is completely dominated by men so, you know, we're just going to slot right in there. Geri... I'd had a number of conversations with Geri. I'd invited her along to a couple of these auditions but, each time, I got an excuse sort of, you know, hours before or the night before, to say, "Ah, I can't make it along." So she always had an excuse. And she managed to move herself through the preliminary rounds, you know, fast tracking herself to the next one. I now think that was tactical. I didn't go to the audition because I'd been skiing and I burned my face, and basically I don't think I would have got the audition because my vocal technique was not exactly very good then. But then I turned up to the small audition, where there was about 12 people, and just was a bit loud. Yeah, total blagger. Total blagger. Back then, expectations of women in the music industry... You know, the most important thing was definitely image and sex appeal. Geri definitely knew how the world ticked. She knew how... What he had to do to get to where she was going. She was flirtatious and, back then, that was what... You know, I did the same thing, we all did it. We had to. I did get picked, and then I got a letter, sent a month later, to say that they thought I was... They thought I was really good, but they felt I looked significantly older against the other girls. I should be called Lianne "Almost" Morgan. I'm almost always nearly there. I kind of went back to the studio and said, "Look, yeah, we're going to have to try "and go back to the drawing board "and see whether there's someone else we can... "You know, that was suitable." Chris now turned to the theatre schools... ..and found exactly what he was looking for. Do you want any business, mate? I'm sorry, what? Oh, no, it's the old bill! I had an audition with, um... ..this woman called Pepe, who took me along to meet Chris. And then he said he'd like me to go and live with the girls for a week and see how I got on with them. I mean, it was a bit hard cos I was so nervous and I thought, "What if they don't like me?" But, luckily, we got on really well, and then they liked me and then took me on. GERI: Emma! Emma! Hi. This is my one. That's mine. This is my rabbit. I still suck one ear. We got it down to our final five - Mel B, Mel C, Victoria, Emma and Geri. You know, immediately, they were operating very differently - they were operating as a unit. Just, like, slotting that last piece in and it just... it did, it just completed it. THEY SING THEY IMITATE A GUITAR SOLO * Who's that? Clifford. Not a problem. OK? Yeah, I mean, we're here till six-ish anyway, so... Great. Yeah, the girls might be a bit knackered by then, but never mind. Fine. I mean, they keep doing it all day long, you know? My plan, really, was to attract, you know, some of the best songwriters and producers in the industry. We were single-mindedly preparing and working towards that showcase. MEL B: Hopefully this showcase will bring writers and bring new material our way, and we'll have something solid and something worthwhile to contract. Group hug! # Take me away # Take me away... # # So hear me out and let me in # I'm coming through with nonstop motion # Time don't wait, don't hesitate # Visualise your inspiration # You know I... # Something magical happened on the day, which I hadn't seen the girls do before, which was where they just completely held court. Have you thought much about what you think lyrically would make sense from where you're at? We don't really want to sing about the love sort of thing, really. Maybe one or two, but that's what everybody tends to sing about. Something that everyone can identify with. They had a semicircle of some of the best songwriters and producers in the country, and they were kind of going, "OK, so what are you going to do for me?" And then they, like, said, "Are we going to write together? "And are you going to give us your best songs?" You know, it was all like this. And all these producers were like, "Uhhhh..." You know, just complete putty. Can you introduce yourselves before you go? Yes, I'm Colin. You know me. Colin. Hiya. I'm Phil. Nice to meet you. Pleased to meet you, Phil. Where you from? They had total belief in themselves, and I think it became their... ..their superpower thereafter. That's it, this is our life. No matter if friends ask us out, "No, I can't go out, "I've got an early morning call at the studio." We all want to do, you know, Top Of The Pops and Smash Hits Poll Winners Party and all that kind of thing. Now, the power struggle that I probably had is that Geri, being... ..super ambitious and impatient and everything else, she wanted to get to the finishing line quicker than I was prepared to go. And she and I... You could feel her and I were starting to pull against each other. She was then starting to doubt whether she - they - needed us as management. And, yeah, the tides turned. And so there you have it - a manufactured pop act with a mind of its own. Geri excitedly tells how they used her car to make a getaway. I remember packing all our stuff up in these bin liners and quickly putting it in my car and just doing a bunk. What did we do, girls? We did the op. We did the op. As the record companies started to circle, the girls took charge of their own future. What, EMI? You want to give us a deal? Wicked! MEL C: We're all going to change, because our lives are going to change so dramatically. I hope. If we do well. I'm going to have a castle with a swimming pool and an island in the middle. The Spice Girls are free and collectively make a big decision. They sign with a rising star of the music industry. Simon Fuller. They begin the process of going out to record companies. And even from the first grainy footage of their auditions, there's something electric. # If you wanna be my lover # You gotta get with my friends... # They stormed the walls the first day they came in. You know, they would come to the office and go into the canteen and everyone's having their lunch and, boy, you knew that Spice Girls were in the room. It was loud and brash and... Yeah, they had arrived. I mean, there was a... There was a battle to sign Spice Girls and Virgin just happened to win it. I met Simon very early on in department meetings. Simon was definite that this was a global project from day one. The scale of the operation was...you know, mind-blowing. INDISTINCT EXCITED CHATTER # You gotta get with my friends # If you wanna be... # Spice Girls are set to give the lads a run for their money. Quite refreshing, really, when a group of girls all come together. CHEERING At five it's Peter Andre. At four it's the BackStreet Boys. At three it's... But here at one it's the Spice Girls! # Yo, I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want # So tell me what you want, what you really, really want # I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want # So tell me what you want, what you really, really want # I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna # I wanna really, really, really wanna zigazig ah # If you want my future # Forget my past # If you wanna get with me # Better make it fast # Now don't go wasting # My precious time # Get your act together, we could be just fine # I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want... # I don't actually know if I loved it or hated it but what I did know was I hadn't heard anything like it. This was a wildfire that was out of our control because as soon as it was released, it just spread. # If you wanna be my lover, you have got to give # Taking is too easy, but that's the way it is... # MUSIC FADES OUT I remember seeing their... The Wannabe video. And I was like, ah, that's...that's... that's....that's a hit. Yeah, difficult, you know. It was a bit... We're on Des O'Connor! CHEERING APPLAUSE THEY LAUGH And you all look so different. That's nice, too, cos I've heard little girls, like my daughter there, saying, "Well, I think I look a bit like Emma. "And my friend looks more like Victoria." And it's like... Honestly, you'll be having Barbie dolls of you next. LAUGHTER Reckon I could jump from there? - Pretty high. - THINKS: Hmmm... If I get hurt, who's gonna take me to the toilet? I'm so sorry, bro. (SIGHS) LAUGHTER * Before the Spice Girls, what you were offered as a young woman, I would say, is you were offered young, quite clean-cut but a bit sexy, you know, smooth-chested boys, really. And why was that? Because somebody decided that women would only respond to men because they had to be slightly in love with them. But as young girl, what you want is some sense of adventure, of building your own identity and some sense of...of release. You know? And Wannabe gives you all of that. These five women were an extraordinary freak of nature together. It was lightning in a bottle. We've just arrived at Paris Airport and we're on our way to Euro Disney. CHEERING I remember hearing Wannabe and the thing that really struck me was how different it was lyrically to what most women were singing about. You know, because it was all about female solidarity. For a group of five young women to not only be having writing credits but to have an input into what they're singing was absolutely huge. That was...is not done. Even with male boybands. PIANO PLAYS The Spice Girls always helped create their hits. They can be seen gathered around the piano, intensely discussing and writing their own songs. We've really prepared ourselves as a package. We've written about 35 songs and we've got a lot of control and we've got a second single coming out, we've got an album coming out, we've got plans for next year, we wanna get everywhere. Do you wanna hear it again? Yeah. ..to be their home, I thought would be better, rather than... Their home, I like that. Ready? Go! CHEERING Two months after Wannabe, the album Spice is released. It becomes the biggest-selling album by a girl group ever, clearly offering the UK something it was missing. I think the majority is girls that, you know, send letters to us, definitely. Which is brilliant. If you think about Britain in the '90s it was all blokes. As you went up within society, it was all men. All men, all men, all the way, it really, really was. And we'll be saying a big hello to Dean Martin. Hello, I'm Dean Martin. You had magazines like Loaded and then GQ and FHM and what they were saying is, actually, "We like women, we like to have sex with women "and the women we like are quite fun." So, on one level, there was a humour and a wit attached to it all, and on another level none of the women featured in those magazines spoke. They hadn't worked out the vocabulary of how to talk about them. We're ladettes, we go out, we drink pints, we do whatever we want. I mean, who cares? You take us exactly how we are. If you don't like it... If you don't like us, get lost. ..tough. The only way you could succeed in that was to be seen as a ladette. Can you drink as much as this bloke over here? Can you rave as hard? Are you as funny? If a nice bloke goes past, we'll go, "Would he get it?" Basically, can you do it all while dancing backwards in heels? Some of the things that happened in the '90s, you know, just so bad. I mean, we thought we were so progressive and it became ironic. It was all about irony. You could say anything you want, as sexist as you want, but if it was "ironic" it was fine. You're making a joke. A lot of people say slapper. I think it means bird, you know, women. # Girl, girl, girl... # INDISTINCT SINGING ..the Spice Girls! WHOOPING AND CHEERING The Spice Girls emerged out of a strange cultural landscape and built up a fan base performing on crazy TV shows. But, arguably, it was the use of a new phrase that made the biggest impact. We started this movement which is called pouvoir des filles. OK. SHE SPEAKS FRENCH # Cos we go... # Say, "Girl power." Girl power. I'm Lilly...a Spice fan. # Girl power... # For some reason, although, you know, I never get it, but, you know, Spice Girls don't call themselves feminists. They're blatantly feminists but it was like a...diluted feminism but there's nothing wrong with that, you know, that might lead you to the stronger stuff. I really don't know what women are asking for. Now, suppose I wanted to give it to them... Listen, you may as well relax because whatever it is they're asking for, honey, it's not for you. LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE Geri took the term girl power into the mainstream at a time when feminism was a dirty word. We've created this movement. It's more than a band, it's like feminism from the '60s revitalised for the '90s but this time round you can wear your Wonderbra, as much make-up as you like, but, you know, still have intelligence. Have some balls. The term originated from the Riot Grrrl movement, a hardcore feminist punk scene which was vibrant and anarchic. Waaah! The Riot Grrrl was really an American...punk movement. It got part of that kind of frustration about being a young person, particularly a young woman, out. You know, there was Riot Grrrl and they had a fanzine called Girl Power. Geri picked this stuff up from everywhere, really. And I don't think they really thought about it, they'd just think, "Oh, that's quite an interesting thing, I'll use that as a slogan." And girls completely responded to it. I was bullied all the time of what I looked like or whatever, it, like, it took that to find out that I had girl power to walk away from that... Who needs boys to make you feel good inside? I am good. You know, I don't need boys to tell me I'm good. There's Geri. Can you see her? Why is it mankind, not womankind, but mankind? Hu-MAN. Wo-MAN. Girl power! I think my role, and Karin's role, the make-up artist, we were sort of the support. We were like their big sisters, I guess. When you have somebody sitting in front of you that hasn't got any make-up on, they're kind of, their soul's bared. You just see somebody as they are and so immediately you can talk to them on a different level. Every job that I go on now, I always think I'm going to be part of the family, and you're not. You're really not. Not part of the family like I was part of the Spice Girls family. If you guys could be careful, particularly over on the right, that we get no little ones squidged over there, please. Thank you very much. SCREAMING The day of London's Christmas lights being switched on was such a huge deal. You can see the glimmers of the personalities that were to come out and you can see the beginnings, especially Emma. Look. Down here. Can you see? It's scary, really. Our songs are playing over Oxford Street. And Emma was the youngest, and a bit naive and innocent, in a nice way. ALL: Five, four, three, two, one! CHEERING Security was running around going, "No, no, come back, come back!" They were like, "No, we're going to talk to the fans!" Please make some noise for the inimitable Spice Girls! CHEERING As Spicemania takes hold, it becomes like a sort of a black hole. It sucks everything into it because everybody had to have Spice! You got to have Spice! We're joined now by The Mirror's anti-Spice Girl columnist, Matthew Wright. Are you anti-Spice Girl? Not quite, not quite, no. A brutal realist, I think. Boy power! That's what I want. Let's bring back boy power! All right. At that time the demand was, what is your Spice Girl story for today? And there was an expectation that we would have to generate a Spice Girl story every day and Geri had a tendency for her mouth at the time to... ..just keep going, and words would come out. Girl power - well... I'm just not even sure what girl power meant because I'd ask them and they couldn't explain. Positivity! You can't... Frankly, it's... The general view was just, "Shut up and go with it, Matthew! "Come on, be positive! Where's your positivity?" Where is my positivity? Yes. CAMERAS CLICK Simon to the rescue! It was ironic, really, that they would be shouting "girl power" when it was a male machine. I mean, Simon Fuller is no idiot, right? He is very, very brilliant at analysing and making pop music work. But what separated him completely from what came before is he saw just releasing a record isn't enough. It was going to be music and brands, he was going to put the two things together. * Girl power has found its way onto bags, pens, boxes and they're coming to a shop near you. They were incredibly capitalist, you know, I mean, they were kind of playing the capitalist games. Channel 5 launched by the Spice Girls on Sunday. Is Britain's new TV network what viewers really, really want? # Welcome to a brand-new station # One, two, three, four, five! # This was a marketing man's dream, a song tailor-made for the launch. The vastly efficient marketing monster behind the Spice Girls has done a million-pound deal with Asda. Girl power is moving merchandise by the tonne-load. 7-to-14-year-olds are clamouring to buy the stuff stacked up on the shelves around me here. I have Sporty Spice. I have Baby Spice. And I have Posh Spice. I have this from the Spice Girls. I have much more stuff. I have a kaleidoscope. I have everything Spice Girl. I really love the Spice Girls. She really loves them very much. The Spice Girls are the first UK girl group to have a number one single and album in America. In 1997, the Spice Girls earned �50 million. The Spice Girls! Now they were entering a world where they were placed alongside the products, a cultural commodity, and their rivals seemed to take pleasure in calling them out for it. They're just a big moneymaking corporate machine, aren't they? You know, advertising crisps and cans of Coke and all that nonsense. They've got a single out now that you can only buy if you buy 20 cans of Pepsi. You earn millions and millions with this CD. Yeah. Doesn't that bother you? No. That we earned millions and millions? Why did we get that? I know! God dammit, I've earned millions! Damn! I don't want to earn that much, honestly! SCREAMING I just want to bring Amelia in. What do you think? Right, um, I'm a feminist. I completely agree with feminist ideas but feminism, which is what the Spice Girls said they were going to start doing, is about equal rights for the sexes, that's what we're trying to say, it's about equal rights. The Spice Girls took it and they trashed it up. Basically they've made feminism and they've made girl power into just a slogan and marketing to try and get people to buy their records. "Yay, I'm a girl, I need to support girl power." You know, it's not like that. Feminism can come from your heart and it can come from anybody. Even boys can have feminism and say we should have equal rights. OK, strongly put. Live on Saturday Night Live! The fact that they made money out of that, that was quite sneered upon. You know, a lot of people really disliked Geri because she said she liked Margaret Thatcher - you know, pretty unforgivable, but these were working-class women who saw the opportunity to make money and you know what, they were kind of winning. I was looking on the inside of the book and I was reading about Emma and it said, it said... It said that she doesn't want to be a cutie, she wants to be a hot sexy bitch. That's what it says there and that really disappointed me because I want to be a cutie, and I don't want to be a hot sexy bitch. These are the offending photographs. You get eight for �1. There are more than 120 to collect and they show the girls in various states of undress, something the parents at the school believe to be unsuitable for children as young as five. In the '90s... Oh! It was just fun. Just fun. In those days, legs, sex sold. You know, I know we've moved on and you can't... But that's what we did. I'm a celebrity photographer and I've been doing showbiz since 1980. You knew which picture editor of the day had which particular fantasy of either Ginger Spice, Posh Spice, that would be the first picture you'd send, because you had to grab their attention, you know? So there would be five of them out in a line. You were hoping that they would all come together because that's obviously "the Spice Girls" but individually who'd you photograph first? So you'd be going along the line. "Oh, yeah, actually, that's a great costume." Brr! Dink, dink, dink. You'd be taking pictures and then think, "OK, that's that sorted, "Paul Buttle will be happy" or... Brr! "Glenn Goody likes that." And that's how you worked. There was nobody sitting there going, "Oh, I think we're showing a little bit too much cleavage there. "Oh, there's a little bit too much bum cheek." It's like, no, that's what we're... You know? And I think it was that sort of slight voyeurism that was, at the time, you know, sold. I don't regret going to the audition but I do regret coming out to the press and saying I went to the audition. That's what I regret. When the press started dangling a carrot, I was offered �10,000 to say that I had a lesbian affair with Geri. And I could have done with the money, really, truthfully, I can tell you, I could have done with the money. No. I didn't have a lesbian affair with Geri, and no, I didn't accept �10,000 to say I did either. It was interesting watching their lives unfold but the difference is their lives have unfolded in the public eye and mine hasn't, and for that, I am really grateful. The dream of the band and the brands were coming together. In 1997 it's reported they generated over �300 million in sponsorship but the desires of the advertising industry and girl power began to clash. On the set of this ad, the girls had been asked to dress up in St Trinian's outfits... ..while all the time being watched by a predominantly male production crew. And action. THEY SQUEAL Aw, no! What do we do now? The girls were doing a shoot for Polaroid. Don't get them now! They dressed up as schoolgirls and these guys were making some sort of lewd comment in the background. They wanted to see more boob. Who was it? Was it you? Might have been. Why did you ask that? What? To have a cleavage showing and a midriff showing. It's every man's fantasy. Well, you can fuck off and bollocks. That's showbiz. Chauvinistic pig! That is such an easy cop-out, that. The girls aren't afraid to call out the sexism to the men on the set. Stop trying to look cool! You should know better by now, shouldn't you, really? Yeah, that's not very good. That really did happen a lot. He's the one who said, "Can you show a bit of cleavage and midriff?" And we... Girl power! No! Girl power. The girls were happy to be sexy but now they're in a successful band, it was going to be on their terms. Want some of my gum? I was in a newspaper in my underwear at the age of 16. So the photographs, the newspapers would just bank them. They'd always have these shots in the background and so if somebody became famous like Geri, bing, there it is, it's out there, straight away. "Geri was a model for many sexy magazines. "How did you react when you saw the picture?" I wasn't really surprised because when we first got together I knew eventually they would come out, so it's just one of those things, it's something I did, it's my past, you know, I'm not ashamed of it. It's just one of those things. Some people used to work in a fish and chip shop. I used to be a nude model. Big deal. Yeah. CHEERING They wanted to bring Geri down and go, "Look, this is how wannabe she is." They wanted to bring her down. It's always about shaming the women. It's always about shaming the women. * 1997 was like a hinge year of the decade, really. The IRA have called a new ceasefire. It's due to come into effect at noon tomorrow. It was huge culturally, in terms of, kind of, emotions. This is the historic opportunity for the Labour Party, this election, to become a modern party of progress and justice. There had been a surge of young women coming through. That was this week's Top Of The Pops. I'm Jayne Middlemiss leaving you with a brand-new number one. But the Spice Girls, they were everywhere. Everything they did would be deemed newsworthy. And they were just spread all over the year. Go on, Melanie. THEY CHEER It is one of the greatest moments in my life. Hey! They must realise, of course, that they are talking about an old man. You're not old. You're as young as the girl you feel, and I'm 25! LAUGHTER It was like the white heat of fame. They were just doing the next thing and then the next thing and then the next thing. We've got off a really long flight and we're really tired. The schedule was relentless. And wherever they went, the girls were hassled for a photo or a quote. Come on, quickly, please. We're knackered. Stop interviewing. We're not doing one. We've come off a plane and we're knackered. Simon called me and said, "Would I be interested in potentially "doing some work with him." He was on top of it. He was really in control. But by the end of 1997, Simon was in a different place, and the Spice Girls were in a different place. I remember him saying to me, "I've had number one albums, singles, "all these things, but I've never been through anything like this." I think he let the genie out of the bottle, and it was clearly overwhelming him. We're watching the Spice Girls, they've been so overexposed, it's kind of like, I feel like they've been around for about a decade already. You know, we've been to many places, it's kind of like a whistle-top stour... ..whistle-stop tour of the world. And Simon was so demanding. It just didn't look like it could have been fun. It was drowning the girls and everyone around them. That year, the MTV Awards took place in Rotterdam, and it was one of the biggest and glitziest shows ever put on, with the Spice Girls front and centre of the event. I can remember being at the MTV Awards. I don't know, you get a sense of something happening, and Jenny and I would be like, "There's something going down here. "I'm not sure what's happening." And the girls told me in confidence... ..that they were dropping Simon Fuller. And I was shocked. We were just called down to the ballroom of a hotel and said, "Right, Simon's gone. If you want to go, then you should go now." And lots of people did go. Lots of people got up and left them. Even security, their cook. And we're like, "Go where?" What do you mean go? "That's not even part of the deal. We're here with you guys, you know, "I'm not getting involved in the politics of it all." I had absolutely no beef. It was my job. And I stayed. And I would again. But, having said that, I never worked with Simon Fuller ever again after that. After Simon Fuller, the Spice camp became more approachable, perhaps. We were all fighting the world together. They became, actually, perhaps a little bit more girl power because they had more control. We delegate people all around us to do, you know, to do different jobs. So what do you do? I'm tour control - I sort everything to do with the tour. If the lighting's not very good that night I have to tell them. I would say mine is pretty difficult, mine's sponsorship. Yeah? Yeah, so it's quite... So she gets all the flak. Doing business like that, you know, it's quite enjoyable, you can get quite off on it, really. But I think it's funny because all these people that we're dealing with are grown men and grown women, and you will have to sit there and go, "Right, I want this, this and this, "and I don't agree with what you're doing that." And it's like, they sit there and take it. You know, he's 50 and he's standing there having to be told off by a 22-year-old going, "You're not doing your job properly." I think it was really foolish that the Spice Girls fired Simon. It was a classic believe in their own hype. And Girl Power getting the better of them, you know? I remember getting a call from Simon Fuller, and he was actually staying down in Italy in Sophia Loren's house, and he rung me and he said, "We need to talk. We need to debrief." And so I went out there with Simon Cowell. And we exchanged stories and a lot of limoncello! I think it was the first time we'd really addressed it together, and he said that he was as sorry for what had happened to me. It's not until he found himself in a similar position that he had some empathy for that. He said to me "If we were going to do a project together, what would it be?" And I said, "Actually, I actually think it should be a mixed band, "and it should have more than five members, "and it should be multicultural." And we discussed how we were going to do it, and that didn't happen, and then he went and put S Club 7 together. Which... I say no more. # Don't stop, never give up # Hold your head high and reach the top # Let the world see what you have got # Bring it all back to you. # INTERVIEWER: What does the S stand for? I guess it's the Simon Club, isn't it? CHEERING Hola, que tal?! The second time I interviewed the Spice Girls was for the Observer, and that was the end of '97. And they'd just sacked Simon Fuller, supposedly because he was going out with Emma Bunton. I have no idea what went on between Simon and Emma, and it really might have been nothing, but there were a lot of rumours about it, and they stuck. Simon Fuller probably had quite good relationships with a lot of the editors of the showbiz pages, so it might have been better for them to side with him because he's going to have other stars coming through. After a year in which they could do no wrong in the eyes of the press, the tide has well and truly turned. People don't want to take their kind of arrogance any more. Marketing agencies think the Spice Girls might have passed their sell-by date. I would say that it's probably a disposable brand. And it's probably designed as such. I think they did themselves no favours at all by getting rid of Simon Fuller, who actually was responsible for their success, no matter what they might think. Well, as the old saying goes, women who can, do,