Mr.X

FREE ME DOCUMENTARY BY POPUNDERRATED

Wasting My Time

It is very obvious that three of them are comfortable on stage and that two of them are not. We know Victoria can't perform any more - as per her own acount and Mel C's, she gets physically sick before doing it. That's fair enough. Geri likes the attention but probably hates touring overall. It is very obvious that when she was young she would be up for it and be energetic but as she has aged - and gotten to be £400million rich with her very posh lifestyle now - she has probably grown out of it completely because she no longer needs it. Having said that, I have no doubts - at all - that if Geri and Victoria weren't so comfortable in their lives with such riches, that they would get back on stage straight away if they had the chance. They were perfectly happy to do it before they broke that £400million barrier each lol But I think the issue here is that they use the group as a cash-cow (they still get around 2million each a year from deals, royalties, etc, and everytime they went on tour was to get some cash injections on their solo careers) and they actually - as a whole - don't like to work together that much... That's very clear. They might be friends - they have been very clear on that - but they don't get along when working together, as they have different priorities/interests when it comes to the band. I will say this though: Geri is apparently developing a film or tv series of Rosie Frost as the rights have been bought by a 'big hollywood producer' as per her own admission. If that goes ahead and she wants in as an executive producer, she would probably go on a tour to get another quick cash injection to help fund the movie. That might be our next best change lol

This. I've been a bit sad since reading this yesterday... coming from Mel B, it feels really final. Also been thinking on how they haven't really been seen with Mel B since her wedding where only Emma and Mel C showed up in different places. Certainly she has not been a part of any recent get togethers from the girls. She was also the only one to not turn up at Emma's 50th, or the get together at Vic's house, etc... Don't know, it feels like they are somewhat distant from her as a group and that is sad. Mel B has always been a champion of the Spice Girls, never had a bad word to say about the group or their music.

Yeah... to be honest Mel B was saying just last week that she would be up for music and touring. It's Geri that needs to come around and I am sure the others would follow. But I think they are done. I've never seen Mel B sounding so defeated.

Biff just posted a video about recording What Took You So Long? with Emma. I love these tidbits of information about their process and wish the girls would themselves do more of those too: https://www.instagram.com/reels/DWpBZT9jkF-/

What a tough day in Spiceworld ☹️ I wasnt expecting it from Mel B but she sounds quite defeated and sounds like the 'honest' dig is aimed at Geri. It is safe to assume something really harsh went down between them. Mel B sets record straight on reunion plans with emotional update on band's 'bond' Mel B is definitively putting to rest the rumours of a Spice Girls reunion for this year’s 30th anniversary. There have long been whispers as to whether the fab five would reunite onstage to mark three decades since the release of their debut single, "Wannabe," in June 1996 and their debut album, Spice, in September 1996. Now, in an exclusive interview with HELLO! out this Monday, the Leeds-born star sadly confirms that a full tour will not be happening. However, she does tantalisingly reveal that there have been talks for a Netflix documentary. The band – Mel, Geri Horner, Emma Bunton and Melanie Chisholm, but with Victoria Beckham absent – put on a string of reunion concerts in 2019. But, asked if the reports are true, Mel responds with a categorical “no”. “I can tell you it’s not happening,” she tells HELLO!. “If it does, it’ll be a shock to me, let’s put it that way. When I look at that [tour] and at the feeling it gave me, I was in my element, but there comes a time… I’m 50. You can’t be nagging everyone to go on tour if they don’t want to. I laid that to rest when I turned 50.” Would she do it if the others signed up? “I honestly don't know. I’ve got a lot of respect and love for those girls. I wouldn’t be sitting here if it wasn’t for me being part of the Spice Girls. They’ve done a lot for me as a person and in my life. I’ve got fond memories, but I don’t know if I would want to go back up on stage.” She adds: "I can’t even begin to tell you what our bond is – it’s just something that will always be there. We’re like family; our umbilical cords are all tied together." Mel also addresses reports that the former bandmates will take part in a fly-on-the-wall documentary like the ones produced by Netflix for Sir David and Lady Beckham and Take That. "I think we’ve all been asked and were all thinking about it at some point," she says. "But it has to be done in the right way, and it has to be honest – and not everybody wants to be honest." For the full exclusive interview and all the photos taken on her Yorkshire farm, pick up a copy of HELLO! Magazine on newsstands from April 6, 2026.

I find this and also I Want You Back to be so surprisingly low on sales, specially when both seemed like massive hits. Hell, I think What Took You So Long was the bigger overall hit as it was everywhere and you couldnt escape it. It still plays on European radios quite a bit nowadays. I wonder why?... it seems really unfair for it to not even have crossed the 300,000 copies mark in the UK considering how massive it felt like it was

But BLESSED that you got to witness this classic being born and performed a few times??????

25 years since this absolute classique

gosh that one-two punch of Naked and If You Can't Dance is sublime and totally unexpected after 8 tracks of pop-rnb with a dash of dance... the moodyness and experimentation in these two tracks is perfect, specially for a pop girlband 🤩 I cant think of such another such perfect closing of an album.

I'm going with Oxygen, purelly because I find myself listening to it waaaaay more than the others. Naked is second for me, then Take Me Home.

We all know that the Spice Girls are well known for their amazing ballads. It's quite a 50-50 take when it comes to them being known for their uptempos as much as they are for their ballads, which is a very rare feat for a mainstream pop girlband like them. But, lets put aside the ballads that were singles for a bit and focus on their lesser known, album and bsides ballads, which have some absolutely underrated gems in them! In other of era and release: Take Me Home b-side to Say You'll Be There, and often refered to as a missed opportunity for not including it on the album, and a definite fan-favourite. Moody, somber and introspective. Naked Again, moody and introspective, but filled with girlpower and a song where they 'bare it all'. Was a staple in their touring in 1997-1998 but hasn't been performed or acknowleged since. For me, this is a 10/10 song! Feed Your Love Maybe it isnt fair to compare since this one is technically a demo. But it was the latest 'new' release by the girls so we take it! And it was the very first song they recorded!! I find this to be incredibly sexy and cool. Had it been finished and properly mastered/recorded, I think it would have made a great track! Time Goes By Often mentioned as the worst song on the Forever album, it does provide some gorgeous lyrics and vocals from the girls, whereas the production really drags it down. Nonetheless, Mel C wanted it to be a Christmas single in 2000 and Emma and Mel B mentioned it as one of their favourites - and they seemed quite proud of it too. Personally, I think had it been done as a piano-led ballad, it would have been a much better song, but I do like it whenever I play it on the vinyl. Oxygen Closing up the album (yes, I think Goodbye is a bonus track and strangely the album works better without it as a whole), Oxygen is a true gem in their discography. The lyrics are some of their best, each of them singing about their own version of what 'love' is in the verses, coming together in the chorus beautifully to harmonise like there is no tomorrow! Produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, it does elevate the original Spice sound to a more 70s feel and it sounds just gorgeous. The critics mentioned it as one of the best on the record and Emma has often said it was her favourite on the album. So what it is girlies?? Which one is your favourite non-single ballad from the Spices??

Spice News was honestly so iconic. We got SO MUCH information from there my god... I don't know... I think you're on a great track with this, and maybe you could make a website charting these? Mostly it would be a copy-paste affair from here so far lol

Well hopefully she was inspired enough to want to jump on stage with these other three girls she knows and who are ready to go I could see the narrative of 'we got together at Victoria's and sang a little for Cruz and then went to see him live and I just thought WHY NOT??!!! I AM A SPICE GIRL' in the reunion tour EPK followed by Mel C saying 'London' 27 times. I am ready for this. The fandom would combust

Emma attends the press day of ‘Disney Adventure World’ & ‘World Of Frozen’ at Disneyland Paris on March 28, 2026 in Paris, France. https://www.instagram.com/p/DWe3L_ODIWN

No Wasting My Time or Let Love Lead The Way?? Including Pain Proof and Give U What U Want??? THOSE BSIDE MATERIAL SONGS??? BSIDES ARE BSIDES FOR A REASON (Mel C voice)

and the original version would have fitted much better in the album too! What a shame... I often play it like this: Right Back At Ya (Pop) Holler Tell Me Why Let Love Lead The Way Get Down With Me Wasting My Time Goodbye WOMAN (live - cos we dont have another version!!) Weekend Love Time Goes By (though I pretend it is a piano-led ballad lol) If You Wanna Have Some Fun Oxygen

Bless her, I love her. Also, I think we forgot one detail about the girls who might be preventing them from going on tour: menopause. Mel B is going through it and apparently so is Emma. I would imagine the other girls, who are around the same age, are all going through it to some degree. It's an interesting conversation and one we shouldn't shy away from. It does dis-regulate women's emotions and changes their bodies in ways men will never comprehend. I remember when my mum went through it and she was a totally different person during it and after. Obviously she is not a multimillionaire like the Spice Girls are who can afford health care that helps them, but I remember she was in so much pain, both emotional and physical... Sometimes she would turn on her friends on even us because she was in so much pain and would lash out. So yeah... this is another piece of the puzzle in the current SG saga..

Mel B: Why I gave up LA for LeedsThe former Spice Girl, Melanie Brown, 50, on her third marriage, menopause and life in Yorkshire Melanie Brown, aka Scary Spice, appears on my Zoom screen like an alien, her face concealed by a huge, white LED mask that apparently boosts collagen. “It’s my morning routine,” she explains in her broad Yorkshire accent. “What I like is, you can walk around and talk while wearing it. I do 17 minutes a day.” At 50, Brown still radiates the raucous, teenage zig-a-zig-ah energy with which she and the Spice Girls burst unapologetically into the world in 1996, preaching Girl Power. Thirty years on, a lot’s happened: three marriages, three children, near bankruptcy, now the menopause. Yet Brown’s irrepressibility is identical to those days of platform trainers and leopard print, both of which she still wears. “The stuff I wore when I was 19 has come back in fashion. And it fits,” she adds with a jokey smirk. Did she have any wobbles turning 50 last year? “Definitely not! I was more worried turning 30, because I’d thought at 30 you’re old and I was going to have my life sorted, a house, kids.” In fact, she was single with one child and a divorce under her belt. “But I’ve never been afraid of my age. I don’t know what 50 is meant to feel or look like.” Mask now removed, hair in tight bunches around her make-up-free face, she’s talking over Zoom from the San Fernando Valley in California, where she’s in the middle of judging America’s Got Talent (AGT), alongside Simon Cowell. What most surprised my friends when I told them I’d be talking to Brown is that one of the most famous women in the world lives not in London, like the other Spices, let alone Los Angeles — her home for 15 years — but her native Leeds. Or, to be completely accurate, an area of outstanding natural beauty just outside the city. “It’s half an hour from my mum’s, ten minutes from my aunties and cousins.” The £2.2 million farmhouse she shares with her third husband, 37-year-old hairdresser Rory McPhee, is surrounded by 15 acres of forest, with two goats, fifteen chickens, eight ducks and two rottweilers. “And we’re about to get two horses.” Does she stomp around in wellies? “Yeah and my hi-vis — the workers laugh at me because I don’t want to get covered in poo.” In a couple of weeks one of her best friends, the comedian Ruby Wax, is coming to stay. “Last time she visited she raided my wardrobe and took two of my Spice Girl leopard-print coats.” Brown made the decision to relocate in 2019, having finalised her divorce from her “horrible, coercively controlled” marriage to the film producer Stephen Belafonte, the subject of her 2018 bestselling memoir, Brutally Honest (he has strongly and repeatedly denied her claims that he was abusive). “My father was dying, and I hadn’t seen or spoken to him or my mum or anyone for a good part of nine years,” she says. “So I flew to England. My dad was in the hospice at death’s door, but thankfully he waited for me before passing away." She brought her children, Phoenix, now 27 (from her first marriage to the dancer Jimmy Gulzar), Angel, now 18 (from a relationship with the film star Eddie Murphy) and Madison, now 14 (Belafonte’s daughter), with her. When it came to returning, “Angel said [Brown affects an American accent], ‘Mommy, why are we going back to America when all your family’s here?’ I’m like, ‘OK, good point. But you’re all California kids, do you really want to move to London with all the different weather?’ They were like, ‘Yeah! But not London — Leeds!’” The younger two went to school in Leeds — “and it was brilliant. They found the weather funny: ‘Oh my God, there’s snow!’ It was quite sweet.” Brown claims that after her expensive divorce and alleged financial abuse during her marriage to Belafonte she had only £700 to her name, so initially she had to move into her mother’s bungalow with her children and dog. “It was perfect, because then I had no choice but to mend the relationships with my mum, my sisters, my friends who didn’t know what I’d been going through. So it put our family back together.” Since then she has rebuilt her career. “I’ve worked my arse off. I’m a working-class girl and I love earning my own money,” she says. She has competed in several international versions of The Masked Singer, the Netflix reality show Celebrity Bear Hunt and is now on her second — presumably lucrative — stint as an AGT judge. She also rallied three of the other four Spice Girls (Victoria “Posh” Beckham was the only one who stayed away) to reunite for a 13-date reunion tour in 2019, culminating in three sold-out nights at Wembley Stadium, its highest grossing engagement of the year. All the same, Brown’s estimated wealth still lags far behind the other “girls” — an estimated £7 million, compared with Beckham’s £500 million with her husband, David; Geri Horner née Halliwell’s £440 million with Christian Horner, the former Red Bull Formula One team principal; Emma Bunton’s £24 million; and Melanie “Sporty Spice” C’s £24 million. Unsurprisingly, Brown was said to be keenly pushing for a 30th anniversary reunion tour. Details were reportedly almost finalised, then last week she posted an Instagram clip of herself walking away from the camera in a thong bikini, captioned: “I’m walkin’ away from the NOISE… So if that’s what you’re bringing you can kiss my [peach emoji].” This was interpreted as Brown’s response to tour plans falling through — news subsequently confirmed by Mel C. “I wasn’t saying that. I was just flashing my bum because I’m 50, so why not?” But the tour’s definitely off? “Nothing’s happening,” she confirms flatly. She puts the fact she’s still on bum-flashing form down to the product she’s promoting today: Revive Collagen Menopause Max, which comes in tiny purple sachets she takes daily. Brown had just got back on her feet, post-Belafonte, when she was clobbered by the menopause: “I got hit with the brain fog, the doubt in yourself… night sweats.” Did she consider HRT? “No, I mean, I spoke to Emma [Bunton aka Baby Spice] about the menopause a few years ago, and she’s saying she’s got this really good consultant who helped her balance her oestrogen and progesterone, but that’s only because she has the money and the time to do that." But HRT is available on the NHS? Brown doesn’t seem to accept this as a solution — pointing out few GPs have formal menopause training and many may be unsympathetic. “Anyway, I don’t think I need [HRT], because aside from Revive, I’ve got a Himalayan salt sauna, infrared shower, an ice bath, it all helps,” she says. “Me and my husband even got a mattress with different sides, and mine’s on freezing cold." She and McPhee married last year at St Paul’s Cathedral with Bunton in attendance (Mel C attended a subsequent ceremony in Marrakesh). After what she’d been through, was a third marriage a huge leap of faith? “Well, I’ve known Rory all my life, long before I was a Spice Girl. He’s a family friend.” Still, it took her until around 2018 to clock him. “All my aunties and uncles were like,” her tone gets incredulous, “‘Quiet, safe Rory?!’ He keeps to himself. But he’s a very sweet guy, he’s from the same village I’m from, we’ve got the same humour, the same accent. Heidi [Klum, the supermodel and close friend] told me, ‘I’m getting married again’, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, what?’ But she met a guy from her village, they speak the same German [dialect]. I get it, it works." Not that wedding bells were on the cards from the start. “When Rory and I [got] together, I said, ‘I’m not your girlfriend. I’m never getting married again and I’m never going to have kids. So if I were you, I would look somewhere else — but we could have fun.’” Undeterred, McPhee proposed, first going to Brown’s father’s grave to ask for her hand in marriage. “I went, ‘Did he respond?’” She chortles. “Rory said, ‘No, but I felt like he was accepting.’” McPhee was the first to read a draft of Brown’s bestselling memoir Brutally Honest, about her marriage to Belafonte, which came out in 2018. “He was like, ‘I can’t believe a man could treat a woman like that.’” Numerous publishers rejected the manuscript, saying they’d only publish such a book if the author “had come out the other end [of the trauma]. But I’ll never come out. I’ll live side by side with this my entire life. I now have tools in place so I no longer jump if a door slams or someone yells at me.” In 2022 Brown was made an MBE for services to charitable causes, specifically her work supporting survivors of domestic abuse. She’s a vocal patron of Women’s Aid. “It took me ten years to figure out how I got there and why I couldn’t leave. I worried it would end my career. It’s embarrassing. I was riddled with so much shame and guilt. I’m a mother — how could I do this to my family? I preach girl power, yet I was girl powerless.” Yet now Brown has rediscovered her mojo and has a new female cause to champion. “Since I was 19, my thing’s been supporting women and lifting them up. Menopause is something we should be talking about. My mum’s in her seventies, she’s never spoken to me about it, but she barely told me about periods. I mentioned menopause to her a couple of weeks ago and she went, ‘Oh, no, we don’t talk about that.’ I’m like, ‘Well, why don’t we?’ I’m making it my mission.” Mel B is the new Global Ambassador for the Revive Collagen Menopause range; Mel B’s perfect weekend: Lie-in or workout? Workout Night in or night on the tiles? Night in. You’ll struggle to get me out of the house unless I’m being paid for it London or Leeds? Leeds Signature dish? I don’t cook Last thing you googled? Comedy on YouTube. Peter Kay and Victoria Wood are my go-tos Couldn’t get through the weekend without… …my husband

Plus, these books (not official merch) have just been announced. They are quite popular, so for any collector this might be a cool item to get: https://www.historic-newspapers.com/en-gb/products/the-story-of-the-spice-girls Historic Newspapers: The Story of the Spice Girls as Told Through Headlines (Friendship Never Ends 🙃) Since 1996.

2 Become 1 is the official song of the HBO Max x Now TV bundle https://www.facebook.com/NOWtv/videos/2992050357648609/

2 Become 1 is the official track in the HBO Max x Now advert https://www.facebook.com/NOWtv/videos/2992050357648609/

Some interesting tid bits from it: Emma says High On Love has a 'bit of Sade in it' and Im actually laughing.... where? lol it is further away from Sade as you can be lol Take My Breath Away was the first solo track she wrote for the album, and you can tell she just loves it. I will never understand why they released the remixed version of We're Not Gonna Sleep Tonight... for Christmas!! What a mess... and yes, A World Without You should have been the Christmas single and followed by Better Be Careful in the Spring alongside a small tour. Naughy Emma. It could have been a great era indeed. I also wonder when the tracks she did with Darkchild and Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis will leak 😜