When
Geri invites you to go cruising in the Med, you don't say no.
Peter Hart spent
two days as the ex-Spice's new best friend...
A tiny, tanned Geri stands in the middle of a bustling airport
departure lounge, the
thing is, she's standing on her head. Seconds ago she took off
her skirt, whipped a
pair of shorts from my bag(like, how would you ask Geri to
stop rifling through your
stuff?) and put them on in full view of some bemused
holiday-makers. She shouts,
"Look! I've mastered it at last," and fifteen people
clap their approval. Red- faced, she
flops forward and reaches for her pack of Silk Cut, seemingly
unaware that she's one
of the world's most famous women. She lights up and starts a
game of charades for
her entourage. It's only a few hours since she headlined
London's 'Party in the Park',
but we're already at Rome airport waiting for a connecting
flight to Sardinia. The island
will be Geri's home for the next four days as she films the
video for her new single Mi
Chico Latino. I'm assured it's perfectly normal for Geri,
worth an estimated £13 million,
to do such crazy things, with no regard for her star status.
And although I've been in
her company since we left London's Heathrow in BA's club
class, she's already
behaving like I've known her forever.
On the Med
It's the same when we meet at one of Sardinia's ultra-chic
marina's the next morning to
start filming. It's 8am and a bikini clad Geri's sprawled out
on top of a luxury motor
cruiser, waving to me below. The new natural look Geri's body
is frankly amazing -
super-toned and very sexy. She's tiny in reality, and despite
all the newspaper
speculation, doesn't look older than 27. It's quite a
transformation from her final days
as the caricature that was Ginger Spice. Back to the present,
and Geri chirps,
"Morning! "How did you sleep Peter?" "Fine
thanks," I grumble, wondering how she
manages to look refreshed after just three and a half hours
sleep. But any tiredness
soon vanishes as the boat heads off into the Mediterranean. We
anchor 45 minutes
out of Sardinia and begin lapping up the sun as it's too windy
to start filming. Upstairs,
Geri's five Italian dancers (who also appeared in the Look At
Me video) are larking
around in their trunks, and on sun-soaked deck number two,
Geri's resting. She's not
supposed to be giving interviews ("There's nothing left
for her to say at the moment, "
explains her PR man)but she wants to talk to Bliss. " I
feel so lucky to be here, she
begins, swinging her legs onto the table opposite so her
make-up guy can file her
toenails. "This is probably the lightest and most
easy-going thing I've done for the last
few months, cause it's normally hard to say 'no' to things.
When people give me
wonderful opportunities, I don't want to turn them down. So
things have been a little
hectic lately. After a period of reflection when Geri quit the
Spice Girls at the end of
May I998, she spent three months writing and recording her
solo album, toured the
world and squeezed in a number two hit with her debut single,
Look At Me. Then she
spent another promotional week in New York and caused such a
frenzy police had to
shut off streets in attempt to control the crowds. "The
last holiday I had Barbados last
Christmas" she says, and there's a pause she
screams-she's just jabbed by a nailfile.
"But I went for two days. I sat on my balcony overlooking
the road and tourists were
taking pictures of me on my balcony. Can you imagine sitting
there and feeling a bit fat
in your bikini? I felt uncomfortable and so I just came home.
"
Under attack
It's hard to see how a star Geri can be lonely, but the,
exactly the figure she cut
90-minute bare-my-soul' documentary. The tabloid hammered her
for being, indulgent.
Even former Spice mate, Mel G snarled, "Trying to get
everyone to feel sorry for her - I
didn't think it was a good move" in a recent interview.
" I do look back and cringe
myself, " Geri reveals, " but.. I thought if I could
show people my sadness then they
would feel so alone themselves " Surprisingly, Geri says
she has few celeb mates
aside from well-documented friendship with George Michael. An,
although it's the day
after and Becks' wedding, there is no mention of them or of
the Spice Girls. " I can talk
to Dawn French over a cup of tea, " Geri remarks
bizarrely, " but I don't go to celebrity
parties unless I believe in what the party's about. OK, but
how do you actually make
friends with people like George and Dawn? Just ring them up
and go, " Hi, it's Geri
here. You might remember from the Spice Girls. D'you fancy
seeing a movie
tonight?" Geri laughs indignantly, before picking her
nose (Don't print that in your
magazine she orders). "No! You can't just be friends
because you're famous -that's
not going to work. need more than that to build friendship on.
After speaking to
George for a few hours I realised I liked him as a person. he
wonderful and that was it
Love & wisdom
George, as the documentary revealed, was the man a teenage
Geri once set her
heart on marrying. She's obviously out of luck in that
respect, but has she ever known
true love? " I don't know. I've felt it in moments, but
actually being in love..." she trails
off. " I wouldn't mind that now though, " says the
singer who once dated Jamie
Morrison, a millionaire-music-publishing- tycoon's son, and
had an on-off relationship
with Spice dancer Christian Horsfall. "Sometimes I think
I'd really like some love in my
life, and sometimes I think I want sex, but it's about more
than that. It's about
compassion, affection, company and someone to cuddle. When I
was I4 and girls
would snog three boys in a night- I didn't - but as you become
older you have more
reservations about letting someone get close to you. Geri
reckons her teen years
were hard as a late developer who felt pressured by her mates.
" I remember when all
the girls had started their periods and I felt like the only
one who hadn't. They didn't
start until I was I7, but I lied and said they had. "When
you're a teenager you're
desperate to belong, so you look to your peers. But if you
feel slightly different then it
makes you feel insecure and pressured to do things you
wouldn't normally do, like
drink or snog boys, " she says. "People shouldn't
cave in to demands to lose their
virginity - your mind needs to be ready and it's something you
should really think
about."
People Power
It feels like we're getting on to girl power. But doesn't Geri
think it's all become a
hollow, marketing-man's mantra? " I always believed in
girl power and I put my hand on
my heart when I say that, she says, fixing my gaze. It was
never just a slogan -it gave
integrity to what I was doing and it grew into something with
more depth to it. " She
pauses, then suddenly she realises she's got it. " It's
more about real power, women
power, black power, gay power - how you do things is more
important than what you
get from them in the end." A satisfied smile appears.
" If you're reading this mag, you
could bean MP, the next Prime Minister, the next big
scientist, a great artist. And when
that careers officer asks what you want to do and you say you
want to be a space
person, and they say, 'Now what do you really want to do?',
tell them to fuck off But
Geri disagrees she's a role model." that's a hard thing
to live up to. If anybody can
connect with me, that's great and I'm flattered. But I'm not
the most beautiful girl, I'm
not the smartest, and I'm going to make mistakes so I wouldn't
want anyone to think
they should do everything I do.!
Girl on film
Lunch is ready and it's a lavish affair in the boat's dining
room. We are treated to a
starter of pasta(which Geri doesn't touch) followed by fish
and veg (which she loves)
and fresh fruit "Never eat fruit after a meal - you
digest it quicker than everything
else," she advises. Lunch over, the wind has dropped and
it's time to start filming. As
Geri has fresh extensions added to her hair, small motor-boats
arrive from nowhere,
full of crew, ready to transport us to a small, idyllic island
in the distance where Geri
will film the other half of the video. I fall asleep on a
rock, waking intermittently to see
Geri still performing for her video - never tiring, never
complaining, three hours of
shooting that will end up as a couple of seconds of moody
shots. At 7.30pm, we're told
it's a wrap and a shivering Geri staggers out of the sea to be
wrapped in a beach
towel.
The Fame Game
As we're speeding back to the ship, [wonder if Geri's happy to
have all her fame? She
pauses and glances back at the rocky outcrops of Sardinia
darkening in the evening
light. "Yeah, I'm happy being famous, " she says
with a wry smile, " but the reality is
often different from how I imagined. One minute the media will
be saying well done, the
next they'll say I'm crap. When I'm feeling good, that's like
water off a duck's back, but
when I'm feeling lousy, it hurts me. Then, with a flash of
Spice Girls confidence, she
laughs, - "Sometimes I am crap! But as you get older you
learn that you really can't
make everybody like you." As we came aboard the
motor-cruiser Geri disappears in a
tangle of salty sea-matted hair extensions for a shower. My
heart sinks as I realise our
day together is over. As I'm whisked off to catch my plane
without having the chance to
say goodbye, I wonder was Geri really being my mate today? Or
is she just amazingly
professional? I hope one day we meet up again to find out.
