Geri Halliwell’s pushiness at the front of the Spice Girls line-up to promote their new stage show this week came as no surprise to Pete Waterman. He, better than anyone, knows that Ginger Spice in full flow is a force to be reckoned with.
For Waterman rates Geri’s TV appearance alongside himself and Louis Walsh as judges on 2002’s Popstars: The Rivals as one of the main reasons he gave up on TV talent shows.
It happened on the day Geri appeared on screen with her pet dog in her arms. Until then, Waterman had prided himself that his appearances on Pop Idol and Popstars: The Rivals were all about the music. But here, he says, was Halliwell reducing it all to pantomime.
‘When she came in and put the dog on her lap, I thought: “What am I actually doing here?” In our contract with ITV there were all these rules about what you could and could not do on screen. One of them, I always thought, was that no animals were allowed. So all the TV executives were freaking out about there being a dog in the studio.
‘I didn’t have a problem with her as a person. She was just a little bit wild. Well maybe wild is not the right word. She’d just been in the Spice Girls, which must have been a surreal experience. You think,
“Hang on, this girl’s not in the real world. She’s lost all touch with reality. She’s got a completely different view of the world to anybody I know.” That’s what happens with pop stars sometimes.’
After that, he refused offers to join the panels of Britain’s Got Talent, The X Factor and American Idol, which would have brought him huge financial reward. In fact, Pete claims the entire Popstars series — which resulted in the formation of Girls Aloud — was ruthlessly fixed, leaving him with a bitter taste even ten years later.