Melanie C: I wanted Spice Girls to last forever

Melanie C wanted to be in the Spice Girls “for life”.

The 46-year-old singer rose to fame as Sporty Spice alongside her band mates – Geri Horner, Victoria Beckham, Emma Bunton, and Mel B – in the 90s girl group, and has said that when the group were experiencing the height of their fame, she couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.

She said: “We never thought beyond the band, or maybe some members of the band did. Maybe some people had a bit more of a game plan. Personally, I was in it for life, Spice Girls for life.”

Melanie also looked back on the ‘Wannabe’ hitmakers’ success at the 1997 Brit Awards ceremony, as she said bagging two awards felt like a true celebration of the “global” impact the band had.

She added: “We went to the Brits 1997. It was the big coming home. It was the night of the Spice Girls. It was the Union Jack dress. I think we won three awards, and that to us was like we were being celebrated. We’d come home and everybody was proud of us, and we’d flown the flag around the world. And so it was so perfect and so fitting to us that we wanted to just acknowledge that global feel that we had as a band.”

And whilst Melanie said parts of being in the Spice Girls were negative at times – including the criticism they were exposed to for their looks – she “wouldn’t change any of it” because she had such a memorable experience overall.

Speaking to Zane Lowe on Essentials Radio for Apple Music 1, she said: “I mean the washing machine is a great image actually, because your world is turned upside down and it’s so hard because it’s everything you ever dreamed of, but nothing can prepare you for that. As a young person in the nineties, you weren’t used to people throwing their opinions at you; criticising you, the way you look, the way you dress, the way you behave, your talent or lack of it, but that was hard and you start to be treated differently. And not only you, it affects everybody in your life, your family, your friends.

“We were in a bubble. We spent probably two years, our feet didn’t touch the ground. We were away from home, our families, our friends, but we were on this mad adventure, this crazy ride so I wouldn’t change any of it.”