1993-2001, 2007-2019Victoria Addams Beckham ("Posh Spice")
Melanie Brown Gulzar ("Scary Spice")
Emma Bunton ("Baby Spice")
Melanie Chisholm ("Sporty Spice")
Geri Halliwell ("Ginger Spice")1993-1998, 2007-
The Spice Girls came together when they answered an ad in a London magazine called The Stage calling for young woman between the ages of 18 and 23 to form a singing group. After the girls were chosen, they began training at a place called Trinity Studios. They named themselves Touch, but in August 1993 they changed their name to Spice Girls when they worked on a song called "Sugar And Spice" that they recorded but never released.
Emma Bunton (Baby Spice) was a replacement for a girl named Michelle Stephenson, who departed shortly after being chosen due to family reasons. Bunton was recommended by the girls' singing teacher.
In October 1993, the girls refused to obey their original manager's orders on what material to sing, what to wear, and who should sing lead. On top of that, they had to wear matching outfits and were forbidden from writing their own songs. They left their manager to gain their independence; it took them two years, but their search paid off in March 1995 when they found a new manager in Simon Fuller and signed with Virgin Records three months later. Their debut single, "
Wannabe," was released in June and foisted Spicemania upon the UK.
Spice Girls were the first act to hit #1 in the UK with their first six singles, starting with "Wannabe" in July 1996 and running through "
Too Much" in December 1997. They took up a lot of room in the British press during this time and for a few years after.
Their first album, Spice, became the best selling album by a girl group in UK history. In America, it was the best selling album of 1997, the first by a girl group to do so.
It was big news when Geri Halliwell (Ginger Spice) left the group in 1998. Their first song as a foursome, "
Goodbye," was released later that year and gave them their eighth #1 hit in the UK. Their first post-Halliwell album,
Forever, was released in 2000 and proved to be their last, as they disbanded in the spring of 2001. They've reunited over the years but haven't made any new albums.
In February of 1997, the group won two Brit Awards: Best Song for "Wannabe" and Best Video for "
Say You'll Be There."
When their fourth single, the double A-side "Mama/Who Do You Think You Are," went to #1 in the UK, the Spice Girls became the first act to have their first four singles all reach #1. They extended the record to six when their next singles, "Spice Up Your Life" and "
Too Much," both hit the top spot, but perhaps they tempted fate by naming their next single "Stop." It stalled at #2.
They didn't tour for the first time until February 1998, when they kicked off their Spiceworld Tour. By this time they already had two albums out and were super famous.
Their videos were big on MTV in America but huge on MTV Europe. They won the MTV Europe Music Award for Best Group in 1997 and 1998.
Halliwell announced her departure from the group in a May 31, 1998 statement from her lawyer that named the cause as "differences between us" but kept an amicable tone: "I am sure that the group will continue to be successful, and I wish them all the best."
Halliwell returned to the group when they reunited in 2007.
Ten-year-old Adele was devastated when Halliwell (her favorite Spice Girl) left the group. "That was the first time I was ever truly heartbroken," she said.
On July 4, 1999, Victoria Addams married the English soccer star David Beckham after two years of dating. "Posh and Becks" became one of the most famous celebrity couples in the world and continued to get press long after David retired from soccer in 2013. They had four children:
Brooklyn, a son, born March 4, 1999
Romeo, a son, born September 1, 2002
Cruz, a son, born February 20, 2005
Harper, a daughter, born July 10, 2011
Fissures between Brooklyn and his parents formed around 2022 and came to a head in 2026 when he posted an Instagram story that read, "For my entire life, my parents have controlled narratives in the press about our family. The performative social media posts, family events and inauthentic relationships have been a fixture of the life I was born into. Recently, I have seen with my own eyes the lengths that they'll go through to place countless lies in the media, mostly at the expense of innocent people, to preserve their own facade."
According to Halliwell's book If Only, she came up with the name "Spice" when she was working out in the gym.
Their nicknames - Ginger, Posh, Scary, Baby and Sporty - came from an interview they did with Top of the Pops magazine before their first single was released. Staff at the magazine thought up the names and used them to refer to the girls in the piece; other outlets followed suit and the names became associated with the girls. "Scary" got her name because she was rather loud during the photo shoot.
Chisholm sang The Pointer Sisters' "
I'm So Excited" at the Spice Girls audition. She recalled to
NME: "I was trying out for West End shows and I got this flyer for a girl band and it was just another audition to me. But I rocked up and said to my friend, 'That's it, that is what I'm going to do' - and I did."
Chisholm admitted in a 2016 interview with BBC Good Food magazine that she suffered from an eating disorder at the height of the Spice Girls' fame. "I was in the spotlight, being photographed constantly, and I started to become self-conscious of my body image," she explained.
Geri Halliwell has the most #1 singles of any British female musician in UK chart history. She appeared on seven of the Spice Girls chart-toppers and has also reached the peak position as a solo artist on four other occasions.
When the Spice Girls visited Nelson Mandela's house in 1997, Mel B made off with a toilet roll. She later admitted the theft to Mandela, making him laugh.
Emma Bunton's mother, Pauline, is a karate instructor. Emma herself is a blue belt and took on the alias Kung Fu Candy in the 1996 video for "
Say You'll Be There."
Four of the five members have #1 UK hits as solo artists; only Victoria Beckham does not. Here's the list:
Mel B - "I Want You Back" (feat. Missy Elliott): 1998
Geri Halliwell - "Mi Chico Latino": 1999
Geri Halliwell - "Lift Me Up": 1999
Geri Halliwell - "Bag It Up": 2000
Geri Halliwell - "It's Raining Men": 2001
Melanie C - "Never Be the Same Again": 2000
Emma Bunton - "What Took You So Long?": 2001
