KEY POINTS:
It's no real surprise that one of Geri Halliwell's first solo singles was called Look at Me. There's no way you could miss her. Her latest project is a series of children's books, about a character she's invented called Ugenia Lavender. The books are being launched one-a-month from next May until October.
When we meet, 34-year-old Halliwell describes the strange feeling you get after so long spent in isolation writing, then there's the launch, and: "Suddenly, there's exposure like a champagne cork coming out of the bottle."
Which is apt as, even from the early days of the Spice Girls, I'd always thought of Halliwell's personality as being a bit like having a can of fizzy drink shaken, then opened up in your face. Not an unpleasant experience as such, but definitely quite bubbly and messy. And that is mostly what Halliwell is like, although she's eager to drum home that, particularly since giving birth to daughter, Bluebell Madonna, last year, she has grown up. Or more precisely, grown out of her obsession with fame.
"The focus shifts, doesn't it?" says Halliwell. "When something is new, it's fascinating. But it's like anything. A toy with which you suddenly go, I know what that does. Or Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz pulling back the curtain and realising what's behind it 'Oh, some bloke with a machine'. It's not a bad thing; you just see it for what is."
We meet in a central London hotel suite. Geri, her hair long and sleek, is prettier than her photos, and physically tiny (though not as slight as the human twig she became during her LA yoga-bulimia years). It's her eyes that really grab you they seem to throb in their orbits with a kind of manic energy. You're instantly reminded of former beau Robbie Williams' ungallant description of Halliwell as a "demonic little girl".
It was Halliwell who first approached British publisher Macmillan with the idea of Ugenia Lavender. "I love Ugenia," she exclaims. "She's a rebirth of Girl Power. It's like handing that baton on to a different generation." From the illustration, Ugenia seems a bit like an older, cooler Powerpuff Girl you can almost smell the merchandising.
Saying that, Ugenia, aimed at 5- to 8-year-olds, sounds rather fun. From what I can make out (I only saw a short excerpt), Halliwell has littered the text with cultural and literary in-jokes. One of Ugenia's friends is called Bronte; another is based on footballer Wayne Rooney. There's even a character called Posh Princess Vattoria. Ahem, I wonder who that is? "Oh she's fine about it," says Halliwell. Another character is called David Bockham. "He has a much smaller part," Halliwell smirks mischievously. "And so he should."
Some people might be surprised by Halliwell restyling herself yet again (topless model, singer, actress, presenter, now author) but she argues it is a "natural" development. She did the lyrics in the Spice Girls, and the video plots (I was always trying to write mini-movies it was my chance to express myself). Moreover, she has always read, and that seems true enough one does remember Ginger with her books while the other Spices were busy with their mascara wands.
"For me, reading was always the great escape without getting your fingers burned," says Halliwell. "It's like taking drugs with no hangover."
As a child, she loved Narnia and Enid Blyton. I think it was because I didn't come from a very well-off background and my mum used to take me to the library all the time as an excursion. I've got an image of me at the bottom of my garden sitting under my silver birch tree reading, while everyone else had gone somewhere exotic.
This could explain why Halliwell is somewhat tunnel-visioned about her new career. Ever since her Spice days, Halliwell has maddened as many people as she's amused, mainly by practising, in conversation at least, a kind of cut-price, sub-Buddhism that does not transplant awfully well from LA.
And there's been enough silliness and tantrums. But I have always rather liked her pottiness and I think if she were posher shed have been hailed as a Great English Eccentric by now. More exasperating, at our meeting, is that every time you try to discuss something other than her forthcoming books the Spice years, press intrusion, her thwarted attempt to crack America Halliwell drags it straight back to "Ugenia", or clams up, widening her eyes in a display of fake shock-horror.
This is may be understandable where her doomed career-sojourn in LA is concerned she eventually describes it as "one of those transient things one does; an exploration" - and I kind of expected it where her fellow ex-Spices are concerned; Halliwell rarely discusses them, or former boyfriends such as Williams. However, I'm disappointed she wont discuss body image.
For all her neediness and narcissism "Ginger", with her whooping and her Union Jack mini-dresses, was a larger-than-life girly Brit icon. Surely we could do with some of her Girl Power rabble-rousing, right now.
But Halliwell seems loath to discuss body image: "It's such a big subject to skim over." I don't want to skim over it. I want to discuss how the pressure on young girls seems to be becoming more and more extreme.
"Yes, all the pressures, stuff like that," Halliwell muses. "I just feel that the only power I have is setting a good example." She brightens. "And I've tried to make Ugenia set a good example, show that it's not an issue know what I mean?" Hmm. And I suppose there's no way she'll talk about the rumoured Spice Girl reunion? "You're right," laughs Halliwell, with some of her old brio. "I won't."
There are some subjects Halliwell can't discuss for legal reasons. Some horrible on-going thing about how a temporary nanny might allegedly be responsible for bruises on Bluebell's arm. Halliwell now relies on her mother, or a trusted housekeeper, and spends most days writing with Bluebell in the same room.
Then there is the strange-sounding story of Bluebell's father, LA-based British scriptwriter, Sacha Gervasi. Getting pregnant after a six-week fling, Halliwell reportedly refused to name Gervasi as father and moved back to England, to camp in her friend George Michael's house in the exclusive North London enclave of Primrose Hill, where she remains.
They have since come to an agreement granting Gervasi access. Halliwell's late father left home when she was little, and she is not fazed by single parenthood: "There's so many of us. It's so common. For me, as long as the child has support and love and feels safe, that's enough."
Does she think she is better off as a single parent? "I can't comment," she says, adding: "We get what were given in life. This is the card that's been dealt and I accept it graciously. Obviously, we have our ideals which are much more traditional, of having both parents, but we can't all have that."
Does Halliwell think that when people are work-focused, as she is, they can become a little too self-sufficient where relationships are concerned? "Absolutely not," she says emphatically. "People need each other. It would be a sterile, barren, empty life otherwise. I love having people, and love, and all of those things."
Certainly she can dote on her progeny with the best of them. She says she was already growing up before she became a mother ("I could feel my hips widening!") but that Bluebell has re-birthed her. "She totally made me grow up and see things differently," she cries. "She awakened me to the world again." Did she particularly want a girl? "I just feel blessed. It's very healing to have a daughter I want to give her self-esteem, and to do that I have to be a positive role model," Halliwell beams. "She's grounded me, I'm so grateful to her. She's given me the roots I've craved for so long." How long? Now a shadow of genuine ruefulness passes over her face. "Oh, forever."
You wonder if Halliwell ever hankers for the late-1990s, before she went solo, when the Spice Girls ruled the world all those larks, cuddling Nelson Mandela, pinching Prince Charles bottom. Halliwell, who has since worked for the United Nations and raised awareness of breast cancer, says that, at the time, she wasn't aware of the bands impact.
"When you're in the eye of the storm, everything is calm." These days, she misses the camaraderie of being in the Spice Girls, but that's about all. Has Halliwell given up on music? (Or has it given up on her? Her third solo album Passion sold only 10,000 copies.) "Not entirely," she says, looking flustered. "I still enjoy the process of writing and singing. But I don't necessarily want to traipse around nightclubs. It's just not me."
As the interview finishes, Halliwell obliges me by scribbling out a fuller cast list for next years Ugenia stories (Van Gogh, Marilyn Monroe, a mouthy TV chef called "Uncle Gordon"). She looks so happy and engaged, almost sticking her tongue out of the side of her mouth, that I find myself wanting to believe, as she does, that she has finally found her thing, her forte, with the writing, and that Geri Halliwell's lifelong search for validation, creative respect? is over.
Before I leave, I ask the original "wannabe" what she makes of her reputation as a relentless fame addict (even George Michael said she was obsessed by hype). "Oh, that was all about being young," she says. Later Halliwell adds: "I'm a product of my environment. I'm from a small town north of London. I was told you can get out of where you've come from if you do certain things. We all have those images and values presented to us. And I chased them just like the next person. I chased them hard."
She was hungry in those days. "Very hungry," she corrects. "One thing I've learned is that there are a lot of talented people out there. It's how much you want it." You're driven? "Yes, I suppose I am," she says with a smile: "The difference is that I'd call it passion - that's the key."
- Observer
