Mel B reveals real reason Spice Girls reunion collapsed

THEY’RE trying to mount another reunion, but 10 years ago a reunited Spice Girls tour fell apart spectacularly. Here’s what REALLY happened.

AFTER a number of false starts, an announcement of a Spice Girls reunion appears imminent — but don’t expect Victoria Beckham to be involved.

The artist formerly known as Posh Spice has given her clearest indication yet she won’t take part in future Spice activities, while in other reports released today, fellow Spice Girl Mel B offered a glimpse into the infighting that has plagued the band and scuppered previous reunion attempts.

First, the good news for Spice fans who’ve been awaiting news ever since all five members met to “discuss opportunities” for the group back in February.

Since then, there’s been a whole lot of speculation and no action, proving nothing comes easy in Spiceworld. But last week, several Spice Girls were spotted entering a London photography studio — where they stayed for 14 hours, reportedly filming promotional material to announce a UK and European tour in May 2019.

But in a new interview with Vogue Australia, Victoria Beckham strongly suggests — for the umpteenth time — that she won’t join her former bandmates on stage.

She recounts a moment during their last reunion tour, a decade ago, when she realised it was time to leave the stage for good. And you can blame Sir Elton John: Beckham said she went to see his Las Vegas show as the reformed Spice Girls were touring the US in early 2008, and was struck by the “passion and enjoyment” he still had for songs he’d sung “time after time, year after year.”

Vogue's November issue cover starring Victoria Beckham.

“A few nights later, I was on stage at Madison Square Garden with the Spice Girls and I thought: ‘It’s almost like a waste that I’m given this opportunity. I appreciate the time I’ve had with the girls, but I don’t have what Elton can have after all these years.’ There was nothing there, other than that my kids were in the audience and I wanted them to see Mummy doing the Spice Girls,” she revealed.

Since her much-publicised lunch with the other members of the group back in February — the first time all five members had been pictured together since the opening of their ill-fated West End musical in 2012 — Beckham’s found herself drawn back into a world of Spice speculation.

“I had a lunch with the Spice Girls a few months ago to see how everybody was, things spiralled out of control, and I had my lawyer trying to beat down stories that were completely ludicrous. It was a reminder of how awful that was,” she told Vogue Australia

“Every day someone says: ‘Are you going on tour? You’re the one who’s stopping it.’ For me, there was always something else I wanted to do.”

New revelations from ‘Scary Spice’ Mel B about the behind-the-scenes drama during the group’s last tour give some indication as to why Beckham would be reluctant to return to the fold.

The Spice Girls announcing their first reunion tour, in June 2007.

The group famously reunited in 2007 for a planned ‘world tour’ titled Return of the Spice Girls, with dates booked across the world — including a Sydney concert pencilled in for January 17, 2008.

But after a string of sellout shows across Europe and the US, the reunion ended with a whimper, the group posting a hastily-recorded apology video explaining that all remaining tour dates had been scrapped so they could return to their families.

It was a bizarre end to a triumphant return, and many fans suspected they weren’t getting the whole story. Finally, a decade later, Mel B comes clean about what broke them up in her soon-to-be-released memoir, Brutally Honest.

Or rather, who broke them up — it was her.

“After three months and 47 dates and hundreds of hours on our Spice Jet (we had one and there was a second Spice Jet that took catering, technicians and crew; a tour is like an army and you travel in planes and juggernauts around the world) the tension was getting too much,” Mel B writes, in an extract from the memoir published by the Daily Mail.

Their reunion stretched into 2008 — but ended with a whimper. Picture: AP

She reveals that bandmate Geri found her “sobbing in a shower” after she didn’t show for a meet and greet on what was to be the penultimate date of the tour, in Toronto in February 2018.

In another extract from the book, Mel B reveals that tensions were still high among the group despite the smiles they put on for the cameras during their headline-making meeting earlier this year.

Originally scheduled for the neutral turf of a five-star London hotel, the meeting was moved to Geri Halliwell’s house at the last minute — and Mel B claims she was the last to know.

“I was totally thrown. I was completely thrown that no one had texted me to tell me about the change of plan,” Mel writes.

“I was so upset that for a moment, I actually thought about not going.”

Bodes well for the next reunion tour …

The February 2018 catch-up that sparked months of speculation.

Victoria Beckham appears on Vogue Australia’s November 2018 issue, on sale Monday, October 22.