Who's That Girl?
Former Spice Girl
Geri Halliwell is
dressed down and
made-under, and
she regrets pinching
the prince's bum.
Tony Romando offers
his instead.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY CORINNE DAY
In her accountant's office in East
London, Geri Halliwell and I are facing
each other across a long conference
table. We're sprawled and spread out
like eagles. Teacups filled with milk
and cigarette butts are shoved aside
to give us plenty of room to maneuver
properly. "All right-now I'm ready.
Should I go this way or that?" Geri
asks with her croaky voice. Well, I
think you should do it like this, I reply.
"Okay then, your turn," she says, lean-
ing flat onto the table to the point of
showing the tattoo that stretches from
the small of her back down, uh, a little
farther. If someone were to walk in
right now, they'd be shocked, I say.
"Stop talking: This is just starting to
heat up, and you're distracting me,"
the admitted schizophrenic says. You
know you could have jumped me ear-
lier if you wanted to, I tell her. "Oh,
come on, be quick, will you?" she
urges. At this moment, Geri's yoga
instructor, Keith, arrives early for their
5:30 lesson. Geri glances up, trying
to salvage one last shred of dignity.
"I've lost, haven't I?" she asks. Ah, the
game of checkers isn't as simple as it
appears, is it?
Not as simple as, say, breathing, or
being a Spice Girl. Looking back,
that's one of the main reasons she
ditched the cartoonish super-group
she once called her family. "Being
with the Spice Girls looks like a short
time on paper, but mentally those five
years feel like 20 years," she says. For
Geri Halliwell, life as "Ginger" wasn't
exactly challenging (what, exactly, was
she expecting?), and there were more
pressing issues that she wanted to
take a stab at - like breast-cancer
awareness, "which the schedule
wouldn't permit," a solo record and
building a foundation of integrity. "it
doesn't take a brain scientist to figure
out things weren't exactly perfect,"
she says. Maybe 4 does, but she
refuses to elaborate.
Geri Halliwell's strawberry-blond
hair is pulled back, and she's not
wearing any makeup. Is this proper
lady the same overly made-up cleav-
age monster who, at a business func-
tion where she couldn't find a bath-
room, used some wadded-up towels
as a toilet instead? "I'll always be
kicking myself for doing things like
that and for pinching Prince Charles'
bum-I wouldn't do that today," she
says. "The louder you are, the more
insecure you are, and that was me.
I'm a lot more vulnerable now." The
trashy ones always seem to clean up
their acts before I get to them.
At 5 feet 1 inch, she's a tiny and
unbelievably skinny little woman,
modestly covered by a black sweater
and black pants. And no, she's not
wearing platform sneakers. Her head
isn't disproportionately larger than the
rest of her body, as it appears to be
in pictures; but her chest, even with-
out a bustier, is alarmingly large,
compared with her overall size. But
no cleavage-I feel cheated. "I have
to question my values and integrity
now," she says. "I'm trying to grow,
desperately. When I left the Spice
Girls, I really had to look at myself on
all levels-physically and superficial-
ly-and wipe off my makeup and
undress myself," Geri says. "I'm really
not sure who I was then."
Now Geri is rifling through her
purse for her driver's license to prove
to me how ridiculous it is that so many
people think she's 35. A year ago, she
was called many things-Podge Spice,
Chin-ger Spice and Old Spice (oops,
we called her that in our premiere
issue).
"I don't have my license after
all-I gave it to my driver," she explains
(although she doesn't explain why her
driver would need her license). "When
I joined the Spice Girls, I said I was 21
when I was actually 22. And now I
look back and say, "I know I looked
old.' I'm just a reflection of the way
society makes us think it's crap to get
old. The other thing with the Spice
Girls, as time went on, was that I felt
unhappy inside and not confident
about my looks, so I put on more and
more makeup to hide ft." You're with-
out cake-face right now, so do you
feel less than perfect? "Yes. But the
difference is ... you hide behind the
mask until you've had enough. I think
image is fine, but image is also bull-
sh#@!, and we have to acknowledge that.
And I have," she says. She doesn't
look 26, but she also doesn't look
older than 30-and even if she isn't
26, who cares? Most people have
issues about their ages. "Who gives a
crap?" she laughs. "Maybe I'm 66,
and I've just got good wrinkle cream."
Say, why did Geri quit the Spice
Girls? "I suppose 4 was quite a mad
thing to do-why would anyone?" she
asks. "I had to go onstage and do the
Spice Girls thing, even though I was
changing." But she is willing to give
me a little Spice World gossip: The
reason Geri didn't attend Posh's (SPICEZONE note: Stupid author, he meant Scary's!) wed-
ding was because she wasn't invited.
She is not a Scientologist. On the
pregnancy rumor: "I'd love to have a
child one day, but right now all I've got
is Harry," she says of her purse-size
dog. On the rumor that she got a raw
deal: "I kind of had to lick my wounds
and rebuild myself, rebuild my confi-
dence as a human being, not rely on
my identity as a Spice Girl," she says.
And the feud between her and Scary
Spice? Geri won't elaborate in words.
But when I give her a T-shirt to auto-
graph (for our managing editor's
daughter, not me!), I have to stop her.
from drawing a mustache on Scary.
Somehow, it becomes her turn to ask
the questions. "Do you know what the
meaning of life is?" Geri asks. Beer
and women? "That's fine," she says,
winking, "but you know when you're
asking yourself the important questions
in life? That's me right now." Geri
Halliwell has put a cork in the "girl
power" for the time being. She says,
"It's more about people power." This,
no doubt, is linked to her appointment
as an ambassador for goodwill for the
United Nations; her responsibilities
include supporting a contraceptives-
awareness campaign and a population-
control program. "I'll tell you who I
admire," she says. "Hillary Clinton. I think
she's brilliant. I think she should run for
president." As of late, Geri's been
spending most of her fte in the record-
ing studio, rather than running her trap
about condoms and sex. She just finished
recording her as-yet-untifled solo
record (due in late spring), which she
describes as a "roller-coaster ride wfth
hormonal mood swings-more adult."
As we near the end of our game, I
have all of Geri's checker pieces ex-
cept two. She moves a black checker
and then takes her finger off of it (she
wanted to be red because red is a
power color, but in the end chose the
black because "black is slimming").
She spots a safer play and quickly tries
to move her piece back. You took your
finger off of that, missy. "I did not! .
Okay, I did," she says. / think you're
pretty much finished. "it ain't over till
the fat lady sings, and I hate losing,"
she responds. "I love the underdog.
You know, checkers is a metaphor for
life, isn't it? Don't move backward be-
cause it's 'Take or be taken.' I've taken
the piss out of myself now, and I think
that's very important," she says.
"I had a bikini wax and, God,
that hurt. A lot of beauty
things are really painful. Men
might be put off by this, but I
don't shave my legs. I haven't
got really hairy legs, and I
think spiky stubble is worse."
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JANE MAGAZINE - April 99
